Update about the overall strategy of Amazon: From: Amazon’s Jeff Bezos Is Like King Midas in Reverse [Slate, Oct 25, 2013]Which is—nevertheless—missing the major point of Amazon strategy: smart investors continue to accelerate buying Amazon shares (from not so smart investors), and thus increasing the share price, because they recognize that Amazon is investing all of its profits into buying market sharein commerce (generally)in a maximally possible way:

We want to make money when people use our devices, not when they buy our devices.

End of the update.

Note that the previous (2nd gen) high-end has been available in more than 170 countries since June 13 this year! This also coincided with opening the curated Amazon Appstore for Android to 193 countries/territories! So Amazon is a global leader now in all respects, and the more it moves its overall e-commerce business to more countries/territories the more dominant it becomes against a whole range of current players! The “devices and services” players as well as all other e-commerce players!

On March 13, 2013 there was a Kindle Fire HD 8.9” availability announcement for UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Japan. At the same time the U.S. price for Kindle Fire HD 8.9” was reduced to $269 (not shown in the above table). Then there was a Kindle Fire HD availabilityannouncement to over 170 countries and territories through Amazon.com on May 23, 2013 with new prices there: $284for8.9” and $214 for 7” (this was shown in the above table). ??? Also the price of the 2nd gen Kindle Fire HD 8.9” was reduced to $269 when the 3d gen was announced this week. ???

As of Sept 27, 2013 there are 159 countries/territories (with additional 34 countries/territories not available, or available via country/language-specific Amazon sites) where you can buy Kindle Fire HD 8.9” on Amazon.com and get shipped to your country, PLUS a curated*Amazon Appstore for Android with over 100,000 apps (up 187 percent year over year) is available in 193 countries/territories. You can see the list for both towards the end of this post. And BTW this is only available since June 13, 2013 in over 170 new countries. *Apps are tested for the Amazon Appstore and Kindle Fire.

Back up in the room, Jeff Bezos sits in front of a blank whiteboard. After pleasantries are exchanged, he leaps to his feet and begins writing. He starts in on the mantras of Amazon’s e-reader and tablet business. Mantra one: premium products at non-premium prices. Mantra two: “We make money when people use our devices.” Jeff jots them down quickly on the board. “Some of this you knew already because you’ve been following us, but I’m going to lay out what a third partof our vision and strategy.”…Bezos draws a Venn diagram on the board. On the left side it reads “customer delight,” on the right, “deep integration throughout entire stack.” “This intersection, here, is some of the hardest to do,” he smiles, “and [where the] coolest customer delight features live.”

…

Jaw-dropping isn’t exactly how I would describe Mayday, the halo feature of the new Fire HDX — but it is impressive in many ways, particularly because of how much energy has been put into simply helping people use the device. Remember, Amazon makes money when people use the devices. But Bezos seems genuinely bummed at the idea that people wouldn’t be able to get the most out of their Fire.

“The context for this is that there’s a degree to which for many, many people these devices have become complex enough that sometimes we get them set up the way we want and then we don’t mess with them.” He swings the device around so that I can see the screen. “The settings, even features you only use once every couple of months, you forget how to. So tech support for these devices is important.” Bezos taps a Mayday button which is now part of the Quick Settings menu on the Fire. A small window pops over screen, and an Amazon-shirted tech support staffer named Dylan appears in a tiny video box. “Thanks for using Amazon Assist, I see you’ve hit the Mayday button. I’ll be your tech advisor.”…“This is one of the things that I think Amazon is uniquely suited for, which is that marriage of high-tech and heavy lifting. So throughout our entire corporate history, we’ve happily lived by marrying those two things together. It’s in service of customer delight, but you can only do it if you integrate that entire stack.” Okay, yes. But, should I be worried about my privacy here?

Bezos doesn’t get into details on the technical aspects of the security for Mayday, but tells me you can disable the service if it makes you uncomfortable. “Yeah, you can say you don’t want it, and set a setting to take it off your device, but you’d be disabling the greatest feature we’ve ever made!” But Mayday gives an Amazon rep unfettered access to my device, no? “It’s not unfettered,” he says, “it has to be initiated by the customer.” And it’s true. This isn’t an open node just sitting there — you have to want to use it. Needless to say, the company doesn’t sound worried about privacy and security — and maybe I’m being paranoid — but in the cold light of PRISM revelations, complete control over your tablet by a third-party may not be something every consumer feels bullish about.

Bezos has a different view — a long view. “Everything we’ve ever done people have said this. People said customer reviews were a bad idea, third-party selling is a bad idea, personalization is a bad idea,” and he does have a point. “In 1994, typing your credit card [info] on the internet is a bad idea. Every single thing that’s new is a bad idea.” And then Bezos repeats one his best rehearsed and most convincing soundbites. “Willingness to be misunderstood is one of our greatest strengths.”

Now decide for yourself regarding this Mayday innovation Jeff Bezos is so keen on:

Introducing the Mayday button, available exclusively on the new Kindle Fire HDX tablets. With a single tap, an Amazon expert will appear on your Fire HDX and can co-pilot you through any feature by drawing on your screen, walking you through how to do something yourself, or doing it for you—whatever works best. Mayday is available 24×7, 365 days a year, and it’s free. See how the Mayday button works in this sneak preview of our upcoming TV commercials. http://www.amazon.com/firehdx

The Mayday button on the new Kindle Fire HDX brings your own personal tech advisor directly to your sofa or desk

Free, 24×7, 365 days a year

The National Retail Federation rated Amazon #1 in its Customer’s Choice Awards, JD Power and Associatesnamed Amazon a Customer Service Champion, and MSN Money has ranked Amazon #1 in its Customer Service Hall of Fame for four years running. Now, Amazon introduces the Mayday button, extending this world-class customer service to live, on-device tech support, right from your Kindle Fire HDX. The Mayday button is available exclusively on the new Kindle Fire HDX tablets, available for pre-order at: www.amazon.com/hdx.

“With the Mayday button, our goal is to revolutionize tech support,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com Founder and CEO. “With a single tap, an Amazon expert will appear on your Fire HDX and can co-pilot you through any feature by drawing on your screen, walking you through how to do something yourself, or doing it for you—whatever works best. Mayday is available 24×7, 365 days a year, and it’s free. See it for yourself—preview our upcoming TV commercials: www.amazon.com/maydaytv.”

Details of the Mayday button:– It’s free. – Available 24×7, 365 days a year. – 15 seconds or less is the Mayday response time goal. – You can see the tech advisor, they can’t see you. – Simple and deeply integrated—the Mayday button lives in the Quick Settings menu, one tap away.

Some customers got a sneak peek—here’s what they had to say:– “It’s so easy, you just press connect and boom you get hooked right up with a representative. I’ve never had a customer experience be so painless and so easy to do. I’ve never had an experience like this before. I wish all customer service experiences could be like that.” –Travis– “With the agent on the video feed, it’s like having a teacher right in front of you. It makes a big difference.” – Ron– “That was smooth and comfortable rather than calling on the phone or typing something in. I really was impressed with how well that went. I remember setting up my first e-mail account and always having to call friends or tech support and it would take so much longer, where this was comfortable and directed me to the right place immediately.” – Pete– “[This] is more personable…it is nice to see his face, for him to actually be there talking to you one-on-one, it seems like you are getting personal treatment.” – Rose– “I really hate when you have to talk to a computer for like 10 minutes before you get to a human being. So the fact that you just click and there’s a human being is much preferable.” – Nicole– “The fact that he [Tech Advisor] can control the screen made the process very simple and I wasn’t struggling to find what he was talking about. The one-on-one experience is very positive!” – Tracy

The Mayday button is available exclusively on the new Fire HDX tablets—read the press release: www.amazon.com/kindle-pr.

Prime Instant Video movies and TV shows now available for downloading—watch anywhere, even when offline—available exclusively on Kindle Fire HDX

Enterprise-ready with support for encryption, Kerberos Intranet, secure Wi-Fi connections and VPN integration

SEATTLE—September 25, 2013—(NASDAQ: AMZN)—Amazon today introduced the third generation of Kindle Fire—the all-new Kindle Fire HDX. The new Kindle Fire HDX tablets combine groundbreaking hardware, the latest version of Fire OS, and exclusive new features and services like X-Ray for Music, Second Screen, Prime Instant Video downloads, and the revolutionary new Mayday button. Learn more about the new Kindle Fire HDX family at www.amazon.com/hdx.

Powerful quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor running at 2.2 GHz provides over 3x the processing power compared to the previous generation, plus the latest graphics engine and 2x more memory for fast and fluid performance. These are the only tablets with a processor over 2 GHz.

Powered by the latest version of Fire OS—Fire OS 3.0 “Mojito”—with hundreds of new and upgraded features, platform updates, and Amazon-exclusive services like X-Ray for Music, Cloud Collections, Goodreads, and more.

New Mayday button delivers revolutionary live tech support—one touch connects you to an Amazon expert who can guide you remotely through any feature—24×7, 365 days a year, and it’s free. 15 seconds or less is the Mayday response time goal.

All-day battery life—up to 11 hours of mixed use and 17 hours of reading.

Best video experience on a tablet with new Amazon-exclusive features like Prime Instant Video downloads, Second Screen, and expanded X-Ray for Movies and TV.

New Origami covers feature an innovative design that allows you to position Fire HDX in both portrait and landscape.

“It’s been just two years since we introduced the first Kindle Fire, and the team is innovating at an unbelievable speed,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com Founder and CEO. “2.2 GHz processor, 339 ppi display, new 34% lighter design, Fire OS 3.0, and new exclusive features like the Mayday button, X-Ray for Music, Second Screen, and Prime Instant Video downloads. We’ve worked hard to pack this much hardware, innovation, and customer obsession into these prices.”

World-Class Hardware

First-Ever, Exclusive HDX Display—Beyond HD Amazon’s exclusive HDX display brings together exceptional pixel density (1920×1200 at 323 ppi for 7″, 2560×1600 at 339 ppi for 8.9″) and perfect color accuracy (100% sRGB), resulting in images and videos that display as the photographer or videographer intended. The new display also features dynamic image contrast, a unique algorithm that adjusts the color of each pixel depending on the ambient brightness in order to maximize contrast. This makes images and videos even easier to see in any lighting conditions, including outdoors. See a video: www.amazon.com/display.

2.2 GHz, Quad-Core Processor and 2x the RAMKindle Fire HDX tablets are the first tablets powered by the most advanced quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor. These are the only tablets with a processor over 2 GHz—the four cores can each run at 2.2GHz, providing 28 billion instructions per second—over 3x the processing power of the previous generation Kindle Fire HD. Fire HDX also doubles the RAM to 2GB, resulting in faster app launch times, faster website load times, smoother multi-tasking, and better overall performance.

Lightest Large-Screen Tablet—13.2 ounces, 34% LighterAmazon integrated the capacitive touch layer directly into the glass display on Fire HDX, leaving a lighter single layer instead of the typical 2-layer display stack. The Kindle Fire HDX 8.9″ frame is a single-piece of machined magnesium with a blend of glass and nylon molded onto the unibody to create openings for the antennas and maximize signal strength without sacrificing sturdiness. The result is the lightest large-screen tablet—at just 13.2 ounces, it is 34% lighter than the previous generation large-screen Fire HD tablet.

11 Hours of Battery, Up to 17 Hours for Reading Even with all this additional power, Fire HDX still delivers 11 hours of mixed use battery life. When you are reading, Fire HDX automatically powers down the CPU and any unnecessary system components and stores the displayed text in dedicated, low-power memory—the result is up to 17 hours of battery life for reading.

8MP Rear-Facing Camera for Kindle Fire HDX 8.9″Both the 7″ and 8.9″ Kindle Fire HDX feature a front-facing HD camera to help you stay in touch with friends and family with Skype. Fire HDX 8.9″ features an 8 megapixel rear-facing camera that allows for high-resolution photos and 1080p HD video, plus an LED flash, Electronic Image Stabilization, and a wide-aperture 5P f2.2 lens that lets in more light, reducing exposure times and producing sharper images. See a video: www.amazon.com/fire-camera.

New Origami CoversNew origami-style cover design provides a simple stand for both portrait and landscape positions, and attaches magnetically so it’s easy to take on and off. The cover for the 8.9″ Fire HDX features a custom slide feature that quickly exposes the rear-facing camera and automatically launches the camera application so you won’t miss a great photo opportunity. See a video: www.amazon.com/quickpic.

The Mayday Button

Revolutionary On-Device Tech Support from Amazon’s Tech AdvisorsHaving trouble or want to learn how to use a new feature? Simply tap the Mayday button in Quick Settings, and an Amazon expert will appear on your Fire HDX and can co-pilot you through any feature by drawing on your screen, walking you through how to do something yourself, or doing it for you—whatever works best. 15 seconds or less is the Mayday response time goal. Mayday is available 24×7, 365 days a year, and it’s free. See the separate press release on the Mayday button and preview three upcoming TV ads that show how the Mayday button works: www.amazon.com/mayday.

Download Prime Instant Videos on Kindle Fire HDX to Watch AnywherePrime Instant Video is the only U.S. online subscription streaming service that enables offline viewing—on a plane, on vacation, and anywhere else where you may not have Wi-Fi. Tens of thousands of Prime Instant Videos are now available for download on Fire HDX. If you are new to Prime, you get one free month of Amazon Prime when you purchase Fire HDX.

All-New X-Ray for MusicAmazon is expanding X-Ray to music by adding lyrics that let you follow along with songs. Lyrics display and scroll automatically line-by-line as the song plays. See a screenshot: www.amazon.com/x-ray.

X-Ray for Movies and TV—Now Even BetterCustomer-favorite X-Ray for Movies and TV now shows the names of songs as they play as well as a list of all music in the movie or TV show, and lets you jump to the scene in which a particular song is playing. X-Ray also shows trivia items in context with the action on the screen. For example, in The Godfather when Clemenza tells his henchman to “leave the gun, take the cannoli”, X-Ray alerts you that actor Richard Castellano ad-libbed that famous line of dialog. X-Ray for TV also provides character backstories so you can easily remind yourself of the character’s history. X-Ray is offered only by Amazon and is powered by IMDb.

Second Screen Lets Others Join InFling TV shows and movies from your tablet to your big-screen TV using Second Screen, which turns your TV into the primary screen and frees up your Fire HDX to provide playback controls, a customized display for X-Ray, or simply a place to email, browse the web, and more while you watch a movie. Second Screen will be available starting next month for PlayStation 3 and Samsung TVs, and later this year for PlayStation 4. You can also wirelessly mirror movies, TV shows and photos from your tablets to your big-screen TV with Miracast-enabled accessories or TVs.

Stay Connected with Expanded Email, Docs, and PrintingWith the new email on Fire HDX, it is easier than ever to set up your accounts, group conversations by subject, sync your email and more. Reading and managing documents on Fire HDX is simple: email them, sync them from a computer with Cloud Drive, clip them from the web with Send to Kindle, or transfer them via USB. Coming mid-November as part of the free, over-the-air Fire OS 3.1 update—print documents, photos, emails, and calendar events directly from Kindle Fire to compatible wireless printers.

Complete Enterprise SupportFire HDX is ready for work, with support for encryption of the user partition of the device to secure data; support for Kerberos authentication so corporate users can browse secure intranet websites; the ability to connect to secure enterprise Wi-Fi networks as well as corporate networks via a native or a 3rd party VPN client; and Mobile Device Management solutions ranging from Amazon’s Whispercast service to 3rd party vendors like AirWatch, Citrix, Fiberlink, Good Technology, and SOTI. Some of these features will be delivered as part of the Fire OS 3.1 update. See the separate press release on enterprise features: www.amazon.com/kindle-enterprise.

Cloud CollectionsOrganize your books, newspapers, magazines, and apps in customized collections for easy reference, and Amazon’s Whispersync technology synchronizes the collections across your Kindle devices and reading apps so they’re available on all of your devices. Cloud Collections will be available as part of the Fire OS 3.1 update.

Goodreads on Kindle FireJoin over 20 million other readers and see what your friends are reading, share highlights, and rate the books you read with Goodreads on Kindle, available exclusively from Amazon. Goodreads will be available as part of the Fire OS 3.1 update. See screenshots:www.amazon.com/goodreads.

New Exclusive Deals for Kindle Fire OwnersKindle Fire’s Special Offers are better than ever with exclusive limited-time, limited-quantity deals available directly from the lock screen. These deals are similar to Lightning Deals that run on Amazon.com, but with even greater savings. The first deal, available in the coming weeks, will be the Madden NFL 25 video game for $5 (92% off). See screenshots: www.amazon.com/offers.

All the ContentThe Kindle Fire family offers the best selection of digital content—over 27 million movies, TV shows, songs, apps, games, books, audiobooks and magazines—including hundreds of thousands of exclusives:– Over 150,000 movies and TV episodes—stream or download, purchase or rent. – Tens of thousands of popular movies and TV episodes are available at no additional cost for Prime members with Prime Instant Video, the exclusive subscription streaming home to shows like Downton Abbey, Under the Dome, Justified, Dora the Explorer, Blues Clues and many more. – The most popular apps and games. Apps are tested for the Amazon Appstore and Kindle Fire. – Millions of songs—stream, download, and store purchases for free in the cloud for access anytime, anywhere. – Hundreds of magazines and newspapers. – Millions of books, including hundreds of thousands of titles that are exclusive to the Kindle Store. Over a million titles are $4.99 or less, over 1.7 million are $9.99 or less. – Over 400,000 titles available for Prime members who own a Kindle to borrow for free as part of Kindle Owners’ Lending Library. – Over 150,000 professionally-narrated audiobook titles, with free samples to listen to before buying.

“Buy Once, Enjoy Everywhere” with the Best Cross-Platform InteroperabilityWith apps available on the largest number of devices and platforms, Amazon makes it easier than ever to access your content anytime, anywhere. Use the Kindle, Amazon Instant Video, Amazon MP3 and Amazon Appstore for Android apps to “Buy Once, Enjoy Everywhere.” No other company offers the same level of flexibility with your content.

Pricing & Availability

The 7″ Kindle Fire HDX is $229. It is available for pre-order starting today at www.amazon.com/hdx-7 and it will begin shipping October 18. The 4G version is $329—you can pre-order today to reserve your place in line at www.amazon.com/4g-hdx-7 and it will begin shipping November 14.

The 8.9″ Kindle Fire HDX is $379. It is available for pre-order starting today at www.amazon.com/hdx and it will begin shipping on November 7. The 4G version is $479—you can pre-order today to reserve your place in line at www.amazon.com/4g-hdx and it will begin shipping December 10.

Slim, form-fitting cases designed by Amazon to perfectly fit the all new Kindle Fire HD and Kindle Fire HDX tablets. All Origami cases feature magnetized panels to securely stand the device in either landscape or portrait orientation and are available in either a premium natural leather or durable polyurethane. The cases for Kindle Fire HDX and Kindle Fire HDX 8.9″ tablets attach to the devices magnetically, making it easy to attach and remove. Furthermore, the cases redirect the sound from your Kindle Fire HDX speakers towards you, immersing you in the rich cinematic Dolby Digital Plus sound experience. Finally, an exclusive Camera-Ready feature for the Kindle Fire HDX 8.9″ case makes it quick and easy to take pictures so you can capture all your precious moments – simply slide the device up in the case and the camera automatically starts, allowing you to quickly snap a picture.

New features include device encryption, secure Wi-Fi connections, native VPN, Kerberos authentication for Intranet access, and integration with leading MDM providers

Today, Amazon is introducing new enterprise and productivity features in Fire OS 3.0 “Mojito,” the software platform that powers the new Kindle Fire HD and Kindle Fire HDX tablets. The new Fire HD and Fire HDX are available for pre-order starting today atwww.amazon.com/hdx.

“Kindle Fire is already the second most popular tablet at work in the U.S.,” said Raghu Murthi, Vice President of Enterprise and Education,Amazon. “As employees increasingly bring their own devices to work, the new Kindle Fire tablets can be easily integrated into the workplace with the new enterprise features, including encryption, secure Wi-Fi, a native VPN client, integration with leading MDM solutions, and Kerberos support for Intranet access.”

Features that make the new Kindle Fire tablets enterprise-ready include:– Wi-Fi networks with WPA2 support for secure access to corporate apps, documents and resources like SharePoint. – Email that makes it even easier for business customers to set up their accounts, group conversations by subject, sync their email and more. – Print documents and emails directly from Kindle Fire to a wireless printer. – Built-in OfficeSuite to read documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. – Native VPN client, for instant access to corporate networks while on the road or at home. – Secure hardware data encryption on Kindle Fire HDX. – Kerberos authentication for single sign-on and the ability to browse secure Intranet websites from the Silk browser on Kindle Fire. – Native SCEP (Simple Certificate Exchange Protocol) client to retrieve digital certificates for secure resources. – Kindle-specific device management APIs that integrate with existing mobile device management (MDM) systems to make it easy for IT departments to manage Kindle Fire. Kindle Fire supports a wide range of MDM solutions including Amazon’s Whispercast service as well as third-party vendors like AirWatch, Citrix, Fiberlink, Good Technology, and SOTI.

Business customers can also take advantage of Android enterprise and productivity apps available in the Amazon Appstore. Examples of top productivity apps available for Kindle Fire include GoToMeeting, Evernote, Cisco AnyConnect, and Documents To Go.

“We work with our clients to distribute Kindle Fire to their new employees because Kindle Fire allows companies to distribute information quickly and efficiently so their employees can easily share course materials, reference documents, and their individual notes with their colleagues,” said Caroline Brant, Director, Learning Solutions at ROI Training, Inc. “Our global clients include leading technology and financial services firms and Kindle Fire has proven to make it easier for our employees to stay productive whether at work or at home.”

Some of these features will be delivered as part of the free, over-the-air Fire OS 3.1 update in mid-November. For additional details, visit www.amazon.com/fireos.[From which I will copy here the most important part:]

Brings hundreds of platform updates and exclusive new features, including the Mayday button, X-Ray for Music, Second Screen, 1-Tap Archive, Cloud Collections, Quiet Time, Optimizing Download Manager, and Social Integration with Goodreads and Facebook

Apps and games built for Android are compatible with Fire OS

Amazon.com today introduced Fire OS 3.0 “Mojito,” the next generation of software and services that powers the best-selling Kindle Fire tablets, with hundreds of updates and exclusive new features to give customers a simple OS experience with Android app compatibility. Fire OS starts with Androidand adds:

“Fire OS includes the core email and productivity apps, but we take a different approach when it comes to content,” said Dave Limp, Vice President, Amazon Kindle. “Our content-first approach shapes the design of Fire OS—the home screen makes the most recent content items available instantly on the Carousel or Grid and customers can move between their media libraries both on the device and in the cloud with a simple tap. We’ve also deeply integrated Amazon services directly into Mojito, such as the Mayday button, Second Screen, X-Ray for Movies & TV shows, and now X-Ray for Music.”

“Fire OS lets developers offer their Android apps on Kindle Fire with little to no work,” said Mike George, Vice President, Amazon Appstore. “Developers can integrate services like Whispersync for Games, GameCircle, In-App Purchasing, and Amazon’s Mobile Associates into their apps to take advantage of the Amazon Appstore’s increased monetization and customer engagement.”

Fire OS features for Android apps and games:

Native Android App Compatibility is supported by Fire OS, so if an app runs on Android it can run on Fire OS with little to no work. Fire OS is built from the Android open source kernel and runtime libraries and is consistently tested for Android app compatibility. Amazon also offers developers an integrated ecosystem for building, monetizing and marketing their apps and games for Fire OS, which results in better customer engagement.

Support for HTML5 Apps allows developers to offer their web apps and mobile websites on Kindle Fire tablets to customers in the same, convenient way as mobile apps. As one of the only platforms to offer this level of HTML5 support, developers can submit and distribute mobile web content without using third-party software or any mobile development.

GameCircle and Whispersync for Games give developers the opportunity to allow customers to sync their game progress and scores across devices, and to quickly integrate Achievements and Leaderboards into their games.

In-App Purchasing and Mobile Associates lets developers give customers the opportunity to buy digital and physical items, such as toys, upgrades and game pieces fromAmazon.com and use their Amazon accounts to make the purchase directly from within an app.

Amazon Device Messaging gives customers a single messaging platform for all their apps built on Amazon Web Services, which developers can take advantage of to send notifications to Kindle Fire tablets.

Amazon Coins offers every new Kindle Fire customer 500 coins ($5) of virtual currency to use for purchasing apps, games, or in-app items on Kindle Fire. Amazon Coins is an easy way for customers to spend money on developers’ apps and offers another opportunity to drive traffic and app downloads increasing monetization even further.

Accessibility Tools including Screen Reader, Explore by Touch and Screen Magnifier enable access to the vast majority of Fire OS features. Text-to-Speech for book reading features natural-sounding IVONA voices for the following languages: US, British and Australian English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese and French Canadian. Fire OS 3.0 supports standard Android Text-to-Speech APIs, so developers can take advantage of IVONA voices for third-party apps.

Cloud services and user interface improvements:

Carousel and Grid views let customers choose how they want to navigate their content. With a swipe, the redesigned Fire OS home screen easily switches between viewing their recent content on the Carousel or their favorites in Grid view.

Cloud Collections organizes apps, books, newspapers, and magazines, making them easier to find. Collections are automatically stored in the cloud and Amazon’s Whispersync technology synchronizes collections across Kindle devices and apps.

1-Tap Archive frees up space on Kindle Fire tablets by identifying items that have not been used recently and provides a 1-tap option to store them in the Cloud for later retrieval.

Kindle FreeTime gives parents the ability to more easily whitelist movies, books, apps and games appropriate for their kids’ enjoyment with the new “For Kids” suggestions.

Social Integration gives customers OS-level sharing capabilities for Facebook and Twitter. With Facebook, customers also get contacts, events and photos integration.

Revolutionary Mayday Button:

The Mayday Button delivers revolutionary on-device tech support and is available 24×7, 365 days a year, for free. 15 seconds or less is the Mayday response time goal. The Mayday button is built into Quick Settings and an Amazon expert will appear on the Fire HDX and can co-pilot a customer through any feature by drawing on the screen, walking them through how to do something themselves or doing it for them. See the separate press release and preview three upcoming TV ads that show how the Mayday button works: www.amazon.com/mayday.

Deeply-integrated content features:

Goodreads is built into the reading experience, so customers can see what friends are reading, get recommendations, share quotes, and write reviews from within the book.

X-Ray for Movies and TV now shows the names of TV theme or movie soundtrack songs as they play as well as trivia and goofs while watching a movie or TV show. Powered by IMDb, X-Ray for TV will also provide character backstories as the actor appears on screen.

X-Ray Expands to Music with synchronized lyrics that lets customers follow along line-by-line with a song. Lyrics are available even when Kindle Fire is not connected to Wi-Fi or 4G.

Second Screen allows customers to fling content from their Fire to their TV,turning the TV into the primary screen and freeing up their Fire as a second screen to email, browse the web, play a game, or follow along scene-by-scene with X-Ray. The Fire screen is not just a mirror image of the TV. Instead, when the customer flings the video to the TV, Fire syncs the video and the X-Ray data in the cloud and streams the video directly to the TV, so the quality of the video is not dependent the tablet’s processor or networking. The customer can even take their tablet to another room and leave the video playing on the TV.

Quiet Time, directly accessed from the quick settings menu, lets you mute all incoming notifications or calendar reminders. In addition, Quiet Time can be tied to a particular activity such as reading.

Quick Switch uses a global swipe gesture from anywhere in the system to go between multiple apps, and unlike standard Android, works with individual content items like different textbooks without navigating home.

Low-level platform enhancements:

Optimizing Download Manager enables parallel content downloads. Unlike standard Android, Fire OS adjusts the number of simultaneous downloads per device, so that foreground app performance is not impacted by background download activity. In addition, the Optimizing Download Manager automatically pauses ongoing content downloads when the customer starts streaming an Amazon Instant Video to maximize video quality. Customers can prioritize individual items to download first, and with progressive download they can open videos, Audible audiobooks, or magazines and start enjoying them while the download is still ongoing.

Graphics Direct Texture replaces the standard Android graphics pipeline. The Fire OS graphics system is customized to quickly load large graphical assets like the high-resolution cover art in the Fire OS home screen. Graphics Direct Texture enables the Carousel and the Fire OS media libraries to include large, detailed images and still load quickly and scroll smoothly.

Touch Responsiveness is improved by low-level changes to the way Fire OS 3.0 handles taps and swipes. For example, the system dynamically increases the CPU speed after the customer lifts their finger off the screen, to minimize touch latency in games and apps. And when a customer taps an app in the Carousel or Grid views, the system removes unnecessary OS overhead activities and drives the app start animation directly to the GPU, so that the app starts to open immediately.

Reading Mode gives customers up to 17 hours of battery life when reading. Fire OS automatically powers down unnecessary system components when customers are reading static pages, storing the text in a dedicated, low-power memory, and powering down the CPU.

New enterprise and productivity features:

Enhanced Email makes it easier to set up email accounts, and groups conversations by subject with threaded messaging and sync.

Printing support for wireless printers is now available for documents.

Enterprise Support with software data encryption on Kindle Fire HD and hardware data encryption on Kindle Fire HDX; the ability to connect to secure enterprise Wi-Fi networks and access corporate apps, documents and resources like SharePoint; native VPN client for instant access to corporate networks; a native SCEP (Simple Certificate Exchange Protocol) client to retrieve digital certificates for secure resources; and a rich set of Kindle-specific device management APIs that integrate with a wide range of existing mobile device management (MDM) systems, including Amazon’s Whispercast service and 3rd party vendors like AirWatch, Citrix, Fiberlink, Good Technology and SOTI. Fire OS 3.0 also supports Kerberos authentication, which enables seamless enterprise single sign-on and the ability to browse secure Intranet websites from the Silk browser on Kindle Fire.

Developers:

Developers consistently report how simple it is to bring their Android apps to the Fire OS platform and how they see increased monetization and engagement with their apps and games on Kindle Fire. Here’s what they have to say:

Imangi Studios is the creator of the popular game Temple Run. “We’ve integrated with Amazon’s In-App Purchasing and GameCircle APIs, which was a breeze,” says Keith Shephard, CEO of Imangi Studios. “We’ve seen significantly higher customer engagement withTemple Run since the integration, making the few, short steps worth it.”

“Since the launch of the very first Kindle Fire, Gameloft has been a strong believer in Amazon’s ability to bring a great user experience to digital gamers,” said Baudouin Corman, VP of Publishing for theAmericas, Gameloft, developers of Asphalt 8 & Despicable Me: Minon Rush. “From recommendations and reviews to GameCircle, Amazonis building the kind of strong ecosystem we want for our products.”

“We’re extremely happy with the per-user monetization we’ve achieved on Amazon with our games,” said Arlin Schaffel at Noodlecake Studios, publisher of Super Stickman Golf. “We regularly see more than double the per-user spend on Amazon compared to other app stores. As Amazon continues to expand worldwide, we’re excited to see our revenue grow along with them.”

Fire OS 3.0 is available exclusively on the all-new Kindle Fire HD and Kindle Fire HDX tablets. Some of these features will be available mid-November as part of the free, over-the-air Fire OS 3.1 update www.amazon.com/fireos.

Fire OS is based on Android 4.2.2 (API level 17), so Android compatibility is high, often requiring no additional development work. In fact, 75% of the Android tablet apps that we’ve tested run on Fire OS with no code changes.

Fire OS also includes a newly optimized, high-performance Chromium-based HTML stack, so your web apps deliver a native user experience using open web technologies such as HTML5, JavaScript, and CSS3.

Other APIs now available include Bluetooth gamepads and joysticks as Human Interface Devices (HID), and multiple user support. Allowing multiple users makes family use easier, especially in conjunction with child-friendly Free Time.

In addition, this release opens Fire OS to a whole new class of Enterprise applications. With user partition encryption and secure connections to enterprise Wi-Fi networks, your application can better protect user data on-device and during transfer. Kerberos authentication and a native IPSec VPN client allow you to connect securely to corporate intranet websites from your app.

New customer-facing features and UI improvements enhance the user experience overall and better position your content with consumers. A redesigned Home Screen with Carousel and Grid views, for example, allows users to customize the display, while QuickSwitch gives them the ability to move between apps with a single swipe.

With Whisperplay, users can fling content from their tablet to their TV, and new download prioritization ensures data transfers in the background don’t compromise device performance, degrade playback, or interfere with the foreground application. X-Ray for Music, Movies, and TV lets customers explore their media in new ways, while Reading Mode makes books on the Kindle Fire even more enjoyable.

And the company’s relationship with Google? It’s a strange symbiosis, since the Fire line is based on Android and plugs deeply into the OS that Google has built — yet there are no Google services to speak of. Is there potential for a better relationship? A Google and Amazon partnership has always seemed like a union with incredible potential, but it hasn’t broken that way. “It’s the kind of thing that we’d always be extremely open to, but I don’t want to speculate on the future.” I ask if that’s something customers have asked for.

“People tend to focus on the ecosystem overall, and so when customers think about the ecosystem, they’re thinking about Prime Instant Videos, and Kindle ebooks. We have over 100,000 apps, it’s up 187 percent year over year. The platform monetizes really well for developers; [with] Fire OS, we work extremely hard to keep it compatible from a developer point of view, [it requires] almost zero work. That’s what’s making our ecosystem work.”

As of today, customers can buy your apps on Amazon in nearly 200 countries worldwide using online and mobile stores in the US, Canada, Germany, France, Spain, and Italy. It was also announced that Kindle Fire HD is available for pre-order starting today, shipping to over 170 countries on June 13. This is a great opportunity for you to reach millions of new customers who can now discover your apps and games online through the Amazon website and on Android and Kindle Fire HD devices. This launch expands developer reach and monetization potential to Amazon customers around the world. For more information see the press release here.

It’s easy to make your apps available in all of these countries. If you are creating a new app, it will be available in all countries by default. You can select country and territory availability for each of your apps if you want to limit their availability. First, go to the Availability and Pricing tab in the distribution portal then select “Only in the following countries…” at the top of the page. You’ll see a list of continents that you can expand to make your selection. The number of countries you have selected in this manner will show up in parenthesis at the continent level. You can set the list price for your apps for each marketplace where Amazon sells apps, or you can have Amazon calculate a list price for you automatically using your base list price. Finally, to help report on all of this international goodness, your sales reporting now reflects your sales by country.

Please be sure to check that your existing apps are for sale in the countries in which you wish them to be sold, and have fun in all the new countries!

Millions of Amazon customers can now discover their favorite apps and games online, from their Android mobile devices and Kindle Fires with Amazon Appstore

Amazon.com announced today that the Amazon Appstore is now available to millions of customers in nearly 200 countries, giving them access to apps and games from top brands like Disney andElectronic Arts, new releases including “Angry Birds Friends” and “Iron Man 3,” all-time favorites like “Temple Run 2” and “Plants vs. Zombies,” and indie titles like “The Room” and “Beach Buggy Blitz.” Customers around the world can now buy apps and games directly from the Amazon Appstore on Macs, PCs or Android phones and tablets (including Kindle Fire). Amazon also announced that Kindle Fire will be available in over 170 new countries on June 13.

To celebrate the launch, the Amazon Appstore is bringing back one of its most popular Free Apps of the Day, “Fruit Ninja,” along with “Cut the Rope: Experiments.” These will be available, for free, on May 23 and May 24, respectively. With the Amazon Appstore, customers will have access to popular features like the “Free App of the Day,” which offers a paid app for free every day. In addition, the Amazon Appstore includes popular Amazon features like personalized recommendations, customer reviews and 1-Click payments. One of the important benefits of the Amazon Appstore is that Amazon tests apps and games to make sure they function and perform properly before they are made available to customers. In addition, Amazon backs its apps and games with its own world-class Customer Service. Apps and games purchased from Amazon can be used across any compatible Android device, enabling customers to buy an app or game once and enjoy it everywhere. For a limited time, consumers will also find great promotions and discounts on popular games from leading brands such as Ubisoft, Sega and Rovio, including Angry Birds Space for free through June 3. Customers can visit www.amazon.com/appstore to start browsing apps.

“We are thrilled to be expanding the reach of our global app distribution to nearly 200 countries. We think our customers will love the app selection we have to offer and also find features such as Free App of the Day and personalized recommendations very helpful as they discover and explore new apps and games,” said Mike George, Vice President of Apps and Games at Amazon. “By further expanding the distribution of apps to millions of customers around the world, we are continuing to make it easy for customers to enjoy their Amazon apps on Kindle Fire and any Android device.”

This announcement is the latest in a series of global expansions, including the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, China and Japan.Amazon Appstore will come to Brazil in the coming months.

Two years ago, Amazon revolutionized the tablet industry with the$199 Kindle Fire. Today, Amazon is doing it again: introducing the new $139 Kindle Fire HD. Kindle Fire HD is available for pre-order starting today at www.amazon.com/fire-hd.

“Two years ago, we revolutionized the tablet industry with the breakthrough $199 price point for tablets—now we’re doing it again with the $139 price point,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com Founder and CEO. “$139 now gets you a 1280×800 216 ppi HD display, a dual-core 1.5 GHz processor, Fire OS 3.0, dual speakers with Dolby audio, vast selection and Amazon-exclusive features like Prime Instant Video downloads, Second Screen, Kindle FreeTime, X-Ray and more.”

Here’s what you get for $139:

High-definition display with 1280×800 resolution and 216 pixels per inch, making movies, TV shows, books and games vivid and detailed. 66% more pixels than the previous generation Kindle Fire.

The new Origami covers feature an innovative design that allows you to stand Fire HD in both portrait and landscape.

In addition to the new Kindle Fire HD, Amazon also today introduced the new Kindle Fire HDX tablets—to learn more about these new tablets and many of the features listed above, visit www.amazon.com/kindle-pr.

The new Kindle Fire HD is available for pre-order starting today and will begin shipping October 2. Visit www.amazon.com/fire-hd to learn more.

The versions of multi-tasking and multi-window view in Windows 8.1 are already the second generations of the concept which first appeared during the preview of Windows 8 in September, 2011. Properly designed applications relying on them can not only be run simultaneously but also can manifest themselves at the same time on up to 4 independent parts of a single screen, as well as extended by using any number screens where there are additional monitors connected to the system. That capability not only enables much higher performance productivity scenarios than before with the first version (i.e. in Windows 8), but the number of possible scenarios can be significantly higher and more complex.

This is especially important as – unlike the current iPad and Android system – application developers could plan their individual apps as part of a growing society of apps (delivered usually by 3d parties) which can be used together with some companion apps simultaneously, constituting together a given scenario actually created by the user himself or herself. This is very much a workstation like environment already found in classic GUI based workstations, but now inside such a state-of-the-art UX environment as that of Microsoft Windows 8.1.

Details

We’re also making improvements for using multiple apps at once in Windows 8.1.

Windows 8.1 brings variable, continuous size of snap views. You will have more ways to see multiple apps on the screen at the same time. You can resize apps to any size you want, share the screen between two apps, or have up to four apps on screen. If you have multiple displays connected, you can have different Windows Store apps running on all the displays at the same time and the Start Screen can stay open on one monitor. This makes multi-tasking even easier. Also in Windows 8.1, you can have multiple windows of the same app snapped together – such as two Internet Explorer windows.

Microsoft started to run this TV ad in May 2013 to communicate the concept of Windows 8: Multitasking [Windows YouTube channel, May 9, 2013] most widely

International Social Video: Like playing Piano and Ping Pong, Windows 8 lets you work and play at the same time. See more athttp://windows.com

At Microsoft’s recent Surface 2 event in New York, Corporate VP of MS Surface, Panos Panay, demonstrated their new NVIDIA Tegra 4-powered Surface 2 tablet playing Halo Spartan Assault with running several Office applications like One Note, Word, Email and Excel all in the background or side by side at the same time.

This video highlights what I initially thought was a bug in Windows 8.1 Preview and now believe is an undocumented UI feature when you are working with more than one Modern App on your devices screen. Update: Thanks to a Twitter follower (@awktane) for this tip which I missed. When you select that third Modern App click and hold your mouse button in the middle of the floating app. After a few seconds an opening will appear to add that app as a third snapped app on the screen. Of course this depends on your screen resolution being large enough to support 3 snapped apps. Another Twitter follower @DatabaseJase shared with me that you can drag the floating app to the top of the screen to open it in full

Compare this to the previous generation hardware and software Microsoft Surface RT – True Multitasking Demo [MyWorldOfIT YouTube channel, Nov 2, 2012] with Windows 8.0 which a common Android tablet or iPad still cannot do (except some Samsung GALAXY devices still in a limited split screen fashion, as noted a little later)

Use snap view to engage your users

Windows 8 lets users multitask by “snapping” an app next to another app. The snapped view is a great way to increase the app’s time on screen and engage users for longer periods. It’s easy for a user to change the main app and the snapped app by manipulating the splitter between the two, so it is important to maintain context across resizes. We don’t want users to lose app state as a result of resizing their app.

Example: home screen snap view

Windows Store app

The snap view of the home screen is just a different view of the home page where a user can still access the same content.

In snap view, a user pans vertically to get to more content because it is more comfortable to pan along the long edge. This is different than the horizontal panning in full view, which is also optimized to pan along the long edge.

I held off from buying a Microsoft Tablet and bought an Android Tablet after listening to some flawed and rather biased reviews a while back. But after being frustrated once again that Android STILL CAN’T MULTITASK while playing videos I went and looked further into the Microsoft Surface RT and bought one. There are several popular youtube videos comparing the Surface RT to Androids and iPad tablets but evidently either those people don’t know how to run a REAL tablet or they are deliberately skewing the comparisons. Because face it, the Surface RT is much more capable than the Android. And the Surface Pro of course is a full powered laptop but with less battery life and cost a pretty penny/ So for what I want in a tablet I got a Surface RT and it is great! As I said, the most of the reviews that came up in search were flawed. I was watching this pathetic one and should have known better when I saw the username… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYbCfL&#8230; But check out the comments now. LOL! The comments were more helpful than the video. They talked about some honest review by some Lisa woman so I found this video and it was great… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIOG2V&#8230; So after that I bought one and the Surface RT did what I needed and then some. Like built in Remote Desktop that works just like it did on my Windows 7 laptop so I can log into my home pc while away. And while most reviews just showed the Surface running the active tiles home screen and launched apps from there they did not demonstrate the Desktop mode which operates it in the more native Windows screen that people are used to which is where you can open windows and navigate the machine or use full Internet Explorer 10. Anyway I am ranting again… and that’s what this video is. It is more of a RANT and a warning to others to be careful with the biased reviews. I give a two thumbs up to this tablet!

I held off from buying a Microsoft Tablet and bought an Android Tablet after listening to some flawed and rather biased reviews a while back.

But after being frustrated once again that Android STILL CAN’T MULTITASK while playing videos I went and looked further into the Microsoft Surface RT and bought one.

There are several popular youtube videos comparing the Surface RT to Androids and iPad tablets but evidently either those people don’t know how to run a REAL tablet or they are deliberately skewing the comparisons. Because face it, the Surface RT is much more capable than the Android. And the Surface Pro of course is a full powered laptop but with less battery life and cost a pretty penny/ So for what I want in a tablet I got a Surface RT and it is great!

As I said, the most of the reviews that came up in search were flawed.

But check out the comments now. LOL! The comments were more helpful than the video.

So after that I bought one and the Surface RT did what I needed and then some. Like built in Remote Desktop that works just like it did on my Windows 7 laptop so I can log into my home pc while away.

And while most reviews just showed the Surface running the active tiles home screen and launched apps from there they did not demonstrate the Desktop mode which operates it in the more native Windows screen that people are used to which is where you can open windows and navigate the machine or use full Internet Explorer 10.

Anyway I am ranting again… and that’s what this video is. It is more of a RANT and a warning to others to be careful with the biased reviews. I give a two thumbs up to this tablet!

No wonder that Microsoft started to highlight the multitasking advantage in this recent video about Surface RT vs. iPad [Windows YouTube channel, Aug 7, 2013], see the part starting at [0:43] under the title “Multitask” and noting that:

One app at a time [on iPad] vs. Do multiple things at once [on Surface RT]

Work with other apps, devices, and the system to complete scenarios for people. For example, let people get content from one app and share it with another. Take advantage of what people already know, like standard touch gestures and charms, to provide a sense of familiarity, control, and confidence.

Use the UI model.

Work with other apps to complete scenarios by participating in app contracts.

Use our tools and templates to promote consistency.

Following these five Microsoft design principles will help you make the best choices when you design your app.

A very important example of “Work with other apps to complete scenarios“ is the multitasking which became available in the first version of Windows 8, and had been significantly enhanced in the recent second version:

The desktop in Windows is the single most powerful platform in the world. It is the only platform in which you can run Photoshop and Lightroom and AutoCAD and Visual Studio and Office all in one platform. And we really wanted to bring together the best of the modern UI and the best of the desktop UI and harmonize them in Windows 8.1.

So the first thing that you’ll notice is that we’ve made it really easy to get to the Start screen in 8.1 with the addition of the Start button. (Laughter, applause.)

So when I click this, this is not just your father’s Start button, this actually floats in the tiles on top of the desktop. So you get this beautiful look of your desktop. You don’t lose context of what you’re working on. It just comes in over top and then floats away.

And you can see we’ve done a lot of work here to make your Start screen be ultra-efficient. We’ve got the small tiles, we’ve got the groups, we’ve got the large tiles that allow you to create, together with new enterprise custom ability and control that we’re giving over the Start screen in Windows 8.1 for you to create an awesome, enterprise consumer dashboard that has all the things that you love in one place.

And of course, one other thing that you can do by default in Windows 8.1 is boot to the desktop if you want as well. And so the whole experience comes together where you have control over the PC.

So we love the desktop and we have made it a lot better. But productivity isn’t just defined by the desktop. The desktop is one way of working. Productivity is defined by robust multitasking, flexibility, efficiency, and having all the apps that you need. And what we’ve done in 8.1 is taken productivity to the next level and brought what was great about the desktop and the things that you could do there and made it even better in the modern UI and optimized it for not just 8-inch tablets, but also large screens, desktops, powerful laptops.

Let me show you some of what we’ve done. So one of the most important apps that exists is mail. This is the new version of the mail app that we have not yet made available publicly, but will be available with Windows 8.1 RTM.

And I’m going to use my mouse here. The first thing you’re going to notice is this power pane here on the left that shows me my folders, it shows me people. I can flag mails very quickly just here in the view — boom, boom, boom, boom, boom — and they’ll show up here in my flag view.

We have my favorite people, all of the mail here, and I also have them split out. Of course I control this. So if I want to put Panos in my list of favorite people, I can do that. If I want to take some people out, I can do that as well.

We’ve also integrated some awesome features to help keep your mail under control. Of course something like drag and drop is really important, and we have all your folders here that you can just directly drag and drop into using your mouse or touch.

We have brought together all of your social updates. So things from Foursquare and Facebook and LinkedIn, these sort of pseudo-spammy, but kind of interesting things and put them in one place so they’re out of your way without needing to set anything up.

And then probably my favorite view here is the newsletter view. And these are also things that sometimes you want to see. Like I love that I have these Living Social deals, but I don’t need to get eight of them a day, I really only need to see the most recent one. And so we’ve integrated a feature called Sweep into the mail app. And what this allows me to do is I can delete all of my Living Social deals. But what’s even cooler is I can say, just delete all of them except for the latest ones. I’m going to hit Sweep, and it’s going to set this up on the server. You’re going to see all of the Living Social deals have disappeared except for the top ones, and it’s always going to make sure that I only have one of these in my inbox from now on. These are some of the ways in which mail makes you more efficient. (Applause.) Thank you.

Another thing, though, that’s really important if you’re being efficient is the keyboard because I don’t know about you, but I do an awful lot with keyboard shortcuts just typing. And I showed you the new search feature, but I haven’t shown you how well it works with the keyboard and how it makes you more efficient.

This new search feature is really the command line for Windows. So I’m just going to type a single — I type “Windows plus S” to bring up search. I’m going to type a single character, “K.” And in doing so, it has brought back apps like Kindle and In the Kitchen, it’s brought back Music, it’s brought back settings like keyboard settings, it’s brought back files, local and in the cloud, it’s brought back Web suggestions, it’s brought back people on my PC. And it’s very, very powerful.

For instance, if I’m just here in mail and I just want to start playing a song, I can just type “K” it brings up the name of the song. I’m just going to hit enter, and it starts playing without even taking me out of the app. Just immediate music playback. So this is one of the examples of how the new Search box makes it possible to do things very, very fast. You will find that this becomes the stickiest feature in Windows 8.1, and you can’t imagine ever living without it.

Another thing that defines productivity is multitasking. And one of the things that I think is really cool about 8.1 is the multi-window view that we have.

So here are a few photos that are attached to a mail. And when I click one of these, notice that it opened up photos side by side with mail. This isn’t some weird preview app that only shows a few file formats or something like this. This is the actual app that is associated with the file extension. And so this could be photos, PDFs, it could be Office, it could be anything. And this happened just automatically.

Another example of this, let me pull this off the screen, and I’m going to show you a link. And when I click this, it’s going to open up IE side by side with mail. You can see that there’s no restriction anymore on just one very small snapped app and then a huge app. We can now use the window 50/50. I can move the snap point so I can make one a little bigger, I can make the other one a little bigger if I want. And it’s not just limited to two apps side by side.

So here in IE, I’m going to right click and do open link in new window. And suddenly, what I have here is two IE windows side by side. (Applause.) Yeah. Suddenly, I have something that is starting to look like a very productive work station. And I can move these windows around, I can put them where I want. We have maximize, we have resize, and all of a sudden you start to realize that there’s more than one way of doing awesome productivity. This uses all the pixels on my PC.

And on this sort of smallish monitor, I can fit three. But if I had something like a 2550 x 1440 monitor, I could show four apps on the screen at once. And all of a sudden, now you’re way more productive than you could have been on the desktop. You’ve got your Twitter feed, you’ve got your full running mail app, you’ve got multiple browser windowsormultiple mailsup at once.

And it gets even better. If I attach a second monitor, then suddenly I can do the same thing on multiple monitors at once. So I have any collection of apps across my monitors in any configuration I want, any size I want, blending desktop and modern apps across my screens. I can bring the Start screen up on one and just leave it, and this doesn’t just work for two monitors, it works for three, four, five, six, seven, as many as I have. And so this sort of shows the power of Windows 8.1 and the modern UI even on a desktop engineering workstation making you more productive.

And then we think about Windows starting on —

TAMI RELLER: A phone?

JENSEN HARRIS: A phone. On 8-inch tablets, also doing the same multitasking and running all the way up across all of these devices, integrated with Xbox and out to any kind of workstation. And it is pretty fantastic.

You can watch the full Tami Reller keynote about Windows 8.1 Product Enhancements [msPartner YouTube channel, July 9, 2013] presenting the complete high-end differentiation vs. the iPad and Android devices which contains the whole demo by Jensen Harris starting at [21:10] while the above part at [53:10], and the end of the demo is at [1:02:10]:

Delta Air Lines is equipping its 11,000 pilots with electronic flight bags using the Microsoft Surface 2 tablet. Device rollout to pilots flying the Boeing 757 and Boeing 767 fleets will start later this year and all Delta cockpits are projected to be paperless by the end of 2014. The Surface 2 runs on the Windows RT 8.1 platform and provide flight crews real-time access to essential tools and the most up-to-date flight-related resources including key charts, reference documents and checklists while saving the airline $13 million per year in fuel and associated costs.

This was on the same day as the new Microsoft Surface family was announced which clearly showed that Microsoft is targeting its next-gen Surface products to the productivity market:

With this Microsoft clearly indicated its major direction for the 10.6 inch tablet devices. They are meant for the production uses and they cost consequently (much) more than either the high-end devices from Apple, Samsung and other global brands, or the top of the local brand Android tablets supplied by the extremely agile “race to the bottom” ecosystem of the so called white-box manufacturers.

WHY KEEP SELLING THE SURFACE RT FOR $349?

TechCrunch: Where does the $349 Surface RT fit into the Surface family, and who is the product aimed at?

Panos: Surface RT still brings, for its value, a lot of the qualities of being productive. Now keep in mind that it will upgrade to Windows 8.1, and it will take on Outlook, and it will give you the features of being a productive tablet.

It’s not as fast, but you are also not paying as much. Doesn’t have the second stop in the kickstand, it doesn’t have the better screen, but you are also not paying as much, so it truly is a value. If you want the most productive tablet from a value perspective what you are getting there, or from a cost perspective, I think that is what we are offering.

Hall: We do think that we’re establishing a variant of the category. To date people have thought of tablets entirely through the iPad lens. We’re doing a variant of the tablet, which is the productive tablet. And so at the iPad level, if they come in and say do you want an iPad or a productive tablet, and we have Surface 2, it is the most productive tablet at its price point.”

“Professional.” “Productive.” “Kickstand.” Microsoft unveiled its second generation of Surface 2 with an assortment of colors (both type and color). Here’s the full event… if the full event was just under four minutes.

Microsoft unveils its new tablet today, the Surface 2. What happened to the Surface 1? Unfortunately for Microsoft, not much. In spite of a massive advertising campaign promoting the product, the Surface was a flop with consumers. Bloomberg offers a by-the-numbers look at the dismal sales failure of the original Surface. (Source: Bloomberg)

Microsoft’s Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2 get a boost from some useful new extras. The good news is, older Surface Pro users can take advantage, too.

How do you improve upon the Surface, Microsoft’s tablet-as-PC that debuted last year? Internal upgrades are always welcome: more battery life, a better display, amped-up graphics. But the real killer apps of the next Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2 tablets might once again be the accessories.

The Type Cover was the one part I loved the most about the last Surface Pro, for good reason: it worked great, felt small, and acted as a screen cozy. The Type Cover 2 and Touch Cover 2 make small but very important improvements: they both add backlit keyboards, and the Touch Cover 2 has far more sensors under its microfiber surface.

The $130 Type Cover 2 has four colors now (2013 is the “Year of Colorful Electronics”) — cyan, magenta, purple, and black — and a quieter click mechanism, plus the pressure-sensitive touch pad works with Windows 8gestures. The $120 Touch Cover 2 has faster type responsiveness in addition to the backlighting and added sensors, but I imagine most people would spend the extra $10 for the Type Cover. All of these will work with older Surface Pros and new Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2tablets. Surface RT owners, you might be out of luck.

There’s one other new cover, and it’s the one I’d buy: the Power Cover (price not available yet), a thicker Type Cover accessory that adds a battery pack, adding 50 percent more battery life, and charges the Surface (Surface 2, Surface Pro, and Surface Pro 2 — again, sorry Surface RT users) in your bag when not in use.

Besides new keyboard covers, Microsoft also debuted a $200 Docking Station, a long-awaited (and needed) way to connect your Surface easily to extra ports while on a desk. Tall, angular, and black, it’s a tiny bit bulky but slides around the Surface Pro or Surface Pro 2, locking into the side ports and offering up one USB 3.0 port, two USB 2.0, audio in/out, Ethernet, and a Mini DisplayPort. It’s not much different from other charging docks seen on laptops and tablets, but the Docking Station also allows users to use the Type/Touch Cover at the same time — and, you can daisy-chain extra monitors via Mini DisplayPort.

Microsoft will also be offering a Car Charger ($50) for Surface road-recharging, and a Wireless Bluetooth Adapter ($60) to enable typing covers to work when disconnected from Surface, which might be helpful for long-range operation — but, then again, you could always purchase a separate wireless keyboard for the same price.

Do these make a difference in a crowded tablet market? The dock keeps the Surface competitive with equivalent Windows 8 tablets for business markets. The keyboards continue to be excellent. But the Surface 2 and Pro 2 accessories, while refined, are hardly surprising. They are, however, undeniably useful.

Here it is: Microsoft’s powerhouse Surface Pro 2. As we’ve seen and heard already, Microsoft’s follow-up to the Surface Pro is thinner and considerably faster. We got our hands on a 256GB model to form some initial impressions and begin to determine whether this guy is worth the $899-and-up going rate, a $100 jump from the original Pro’s pricing scheme. Read on at Engadget:http://goo.gl/iHJ9nb

The Surface Pro 2 may just be the most powerful tablet on the market. Microsoft has combined a new round of tweaks (including a wider kickstand and longer battery life) with enticing add-ons (200 GB of free cloud storage) that plays to its strengths. Would you buy one? Let us know in the comments.

Microsoft just announced the Surface 2, the successor to the original Surface RT tablet. So of course, we did exactly what any self-respecting Engadget editors would do: we muscled our way to the front of the demo area and made sure we were the first to get our hands on it. Read on at Engadget: http://goo.gl/yH7AAu

Three weeks before launching its new line of products, the Surface design team took a trip to Pasadena, CA, where they held a 3 day workshop with renowned design school Art Center College of Design. The group of 11 students chosen for the workshop were the first people outside of Microsoft to see a new accessory the design team has been working on: a music attachment that clicks into a Surface and allows users to easily remix music. They asked the students: what else would you want to attach to a Surface? They code named these attachments blades.

Note to editors: The battery life figure provided below was corrected following publication. Surface Pro provides up to 75 percent more battery life, not 60 percent more as was previously indicated.

NEW YORK — Sept. 23, 2013 — Microsoft Corp. on Monday announced that the Microsoft Surface family of tablets is growing. Two new Surface models — Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2 — along with an expanded portfolio of new Surface accessories, will be available at Microsoft retail stores, http://www.MicrosoftStore.com and select third-party retailers and commercial resellers in 22 initial markets, including Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States on Oct. 22 and China in early November. Additional markets will be announced in the coming months.

Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2 each benefit from significant updates, including improvements to processing power and battery life, to display and camera resolution, and to the Kickstand, now with dual angles, so it’s more comfortable for you to use your Surface on your lap or at your desk. Enhancements in Windows RT 8.1 and Windows 8.1 Pro make Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2 even more powerful and customizable.

Pre-order Surface

Customers can pre-order Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2 starting at 8 a.m. EDT on Sept. 24, 2013, athttp://www.MicrosoftStore.com, Microsoft Stores, and Best Buy in the U.S. and Canada, as well as select retailers in most Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2 launch markets.

Value-added services

To help people get the most out of Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2, customers purchasing either device will receive free Skype calling to landlines in more than 60 countries for one year, unlimitedSkype WiFion their Surface 2 or Surface Pro 2 at more than 2 million hot spots worldwide for one year, and 200 GB of free SkyDrivestorage for two years.

Surface 2

Surface 2 is the most productive tablet for personal use. It offers all the entertainment and gaming capabilities you expect from a tablet, along with the ability to get work done. Surface 2 is powered by an NVIDIA Tegra 4 processor, making apps run faster and smoother and increasing battery life to up to 10 hours for video playback. The 10.6-inch ClearType Full HD display now renders 1080p video for enjoying shows and movies, and its full-size USB port has been upgraded to USB 3.0 for up to four times faster file transfers. Camera resolution has also increased, with a 3.5-megapixel front camera and 5-megapixel rear camera, both capable of capturing 1080p video and featuring improved low-light performance, making face-to-face conversations with your favorite people crisp and clear. Even with these and other upgrades, Surface 2 is slightly thinner and lighter than its predecessor.

Surface 2 will ship with Windows RT 8.1, bringing improvements in key areas such as personalization, search, multitasking, built-in apps, the Windows Store experience and cloud connectivity. The new Xbox Music allows you to stream millions of songs for free, and an updated Video app and great games from the Windows Store such as “Halo: Spartan Assault” will ensure that you never run out of ways to play. When it’s time to get serious, Surface 2 is pre-loaded with Office Home & Student 2013 RT and Outlook 2013 RT; simply click in a Touch or Type Cover and get to work.

Surface 2 is available in 32GB and 64GB configurations[1]; it will start at $449.

Surface Pro 2

Surface Pro 2 is the successor to Surface Pro and, like its predecessor, is a true laptop replacement, capable of running virtually all your Windows software including the full Microsoft Office suite [2], as well as apps from the Windows Store. Surface Pro 2 offers the portability and simplicity of a tablet when you want it and the power and flexibility of a laptop when you need it. It is powered by a fourth-generation Intel Core i5 processor which, combined with other improvements, delivers increased performance and up to 75 percent longer battery life than Surface Pro.

Starting at $899, Surface Pro 2 will be offered in 64GB and 128GB configurations with 4 GB of RAM and 256GB and 512GB configurations with 8 GB of RAM.[1]

New Accessories

Today’s announcement also includes seven new accessories that will make Surface even more flexible, more portable and more productive:

Touch Cover 2. Thinner and lighter than the original Touch Cover, measuring only 2.75 mm thin, Touch Cover 2 features backlit keys for even better readability. Touch Cover 2 is more rigid, registers keystrokes with greater accuracy and features updated sensors that support a variety of gestures across the entire keyboard. Touch Cover 2 has an estimated retail price of $119.99. It will be available for pre-order on Sept. 24 in all markets where Surface devices are available for pre-order.

Type Cover 2. Type Cover 2 features the same super-thin, lightweight design of the original Type Cover, but it’s now backlit and will be available in Cyan, Magenta, Purple and Black in the coming months. It’s also more rigid, providing a better lap-typing experience, and is designed to be noticeably quieter when striking keys. Type Cover 2 will have an estimated retail price of $129.99. It will be available for pre-order on Sept. 24 in all markets where Surface devices are available for pre-order.[3]

Power Cover. Power Cover delivers the same great typing experience you get with Type Cover while extending the battery life of your Surface 2, Surface Pro and Surface Pro 2 by up to 50 percent to help you make it through that late-night meeting or the entire flight. Power Cover will have an estimated retail price of $199.99 and has a projected release date of early 2014.

Docking Station for Surface Pro. The Docking Station for Surface Pro lets you quickly connect Surface Pro and Surface Pro 2 to desktop PC peripherals in a single step, taking you from laptop to desktop in an instant. While Surface Pro or Surface Pro 2 is docked, it can connect with an external monitor, Ethernet, speakers and power supply. PC peripherals connect via its one USB 3.0 port and three USB 2.0 ports. The Docking Station for Surface Pro will have an estimated retail price of $199.99 and has a projected release date of early 2014.

Wireless Adapter for Typing Covers. The Wireless Adapter for Typing Covers connects magnetically to any Touch or Type Cover, letting you type from anywhere in the room using Bluetooth technology, so it is even easier to connect Surface to a TV or monitor[4] and type from another location, such as the couch. Wireless Adapter for Typing Covers will have an estimated retail price of $59.99. It will be available for pre-order in the U.S. and Canada beginning Sept. 24.

Car Charger with USB. Car Charger plugs into most cars’ power or lighter ports and charges Surface without the need for an additional adapter. It also features a USB port to allow simultaneous charging of a phone or other device. Car Charger will have an estimated retail price of $49.99 and has a projected release date of early 2014.

Arc Touch Mouse Surface Edition. This special-edition Arc Touch Mouse has been updated to match the look of Surface. Like other Arc Touch mice, it is designed for comfort and flattens for portability. It connects via Bluetooth 3.0, freeing Surface’s USB port for use by other devices. Arc Touch Mouse Surface Edition will have an estimated retail price of $69.99 and will be available for pre-order in the U.S. and Canada on Sept. 24. Distribution in additional markets is projected to begin in the coming months.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

The information contained in this press release relates to pre-release software products that may be substantially modified before their first commercial release. Accordingly, the information may not accurately describe or reflect the software products when first commercially released. The press release is provided for informational purposes only, and Microsoft makes no warranties, express or implied, with respect to the press release or the information contained in it.

[1] System software uses significant storage space. Available storage is subject to change based on system software updates and apps usage. 1 GB = 1 billion bytes. See Surface.com/storage for more details. Initial quantities of Surface Pro 2 with 512 GB will be limited.

[2] Office sold separately.

[3] The Black and Purple Type Cover 2 will be available for pre-order. Other colors will be available in the coming months.

I’m excited today to introduce Box Notes, a new way to create documents and work in real-time with others on Box.

Our work began many months ago, but the moment Box Notes first came alive for me was the first time I saw one of my team’s faces – in the form of a profile picture – pop into the Box Note and zoom down the left side of the page. There’s a lot of research about the way our brains process faces and how they have a unique way of making us happy. A smiling face, even in the form of a small profile picture, tells us someone else is there. The web is a social environment, and at the heart of it all is people.

Including people’s profile pictures in Box Notes says volumes about the product as a whole. We want you to have fun using it, we want the product to make you smile, we want the product to shine when you’re collaborating with other people, and we want to enable things that are only possible when a text editor is built on top of the web.

Box Notes lets you create documents, take notes and share ideas in real-time with your team, all right within Box. With Box Notes, never let the best ideas get away. Learn more at: box.com/notes

Our long-term vision is to continue to build a product that makes it easier to capture and share information, but right now I’d like to zoom way in and highlight three key features in detail.

Work is Collaborative

At its core, Box Notes is about working with others. And nowhere is this more exemplified than in the profile pictures I mentioned above, which we’ve nicknamed ”note heads.” These work by displaying your profile picture in the left margin next to your cursor position. When you’re working on a note with multiple people, it’s easy to see where everyone else is working. We’ve found that it facilities activities like conference calls because you can say “look here” rather than “look at the third paragraph, line number four.”

Capturing Ideas

Whatever tool you’re using to capture ideas should fade into the background and get out of the way, but at the same time provide additional richness when you want it to. Think about how you can completely ignore the eraser on a pencil until you need it.

Our inline toolbar is built with the same principle in mind. We’re striving to keep the editor as streamlined and elegant as possible by only displaying functionality when it’s relevant. Only after highlighting some text will you see our inline toolbar appear, offering a way to annotate a document and leave feedback for others.

Simple annotations within your document and the ability to comment alongside the document are examples of ways to capture ideas and share them with others. We’ve aimed to provide the most essential tools for getting work done.

Built into Box

Finally, sharing notes with others is just as simple and secure as sharing anything else on Box, because Box Notes is built on top of Box. If you create a note in a folder where you’re already collaborating with others, you don’t have to do anything to share it. Your collaborators will already have access. And if the folder has no existing collaborators, your note isn’t shared and is as secure as anything else stored in Box.

Looking Forward

We hope you enjoy Box Notes and look forward to the many features we will be adding soon. We’ll continue to improve the editor, making it possible to create a wider variety of documents. Accessing notes from anywhere and any device is crucial, so expect to see a mobile version of Box Notes too. And we’ll continue to build features that are only possible in an online, collaborative editor.

Our belief is that existing word processors have overshot the market, building ever more complex features, many of them still related to printing documents. At the opposite end of the spectrum, social communication and messaging applications have enabled new forms of continuous productivity [by Steven Sinofsky] not previously seen in the workplace. Box Notes is a blend of these two categories. We believe innovation along the dimension of social collaboration is the future of content creation tools in the coming years.

Box faces formidable competition in the file-sync-share-and-store landscape in Google, Microsoft, Dropbox and a dozen smaller companies, so it’s trying to distinguish itself with its business-only focus and to carve out a bigger piece of the collaboration market.

It’s worth noting (again) thatSam Schillace, a key force behind Google Docs, is now VP of engineering at Box and Steven Sinofsky, who ran Microsoft Office and Windows, is now an advisor. Both of these guys are big thinkers in enterprise collaboration software.

Prospective tire-kickers can sign up for a limited beta this week at – Box CEO Aaron Levie will announce the product at BoxWorks on Monday. General availability for the free product is year’s end.

The first release promises concurrent editing in real time; collaborator presence (the aforementioned floating heads); in-line toolbar and annotations; comments etc. Plans call for a mobile version (interesting that this wasn’t first down the chute); the ability to embed video, images and audio; version history; and (this is a big one) offline editing. As we all know not even the most ardent web surfer is online 24 X 7.

The demo was pretty cool and I saw lots of ways to use Box Notes at Gigaom. If only they’d lose those floaty heads.

For too long, enterprise technology has been dominated by industry giants that grow through complexity rather than innovation. A new generation of software is disrupting this status quo – software that is simple, intuitive, open, and mobile … and sexy. Learn how Box’s unique approach to enterprise software is leading a technology revolution in the workplace. For more Box videos, visit us at http://www.youtube.com/box

Learn how Box makes it easy to share content and collaborate online. Simple online collaboration from Box: put your file server online, create team workspaces and replace your FTP software for a better, easier to use system. http://www.box.com For more Box videos, visit us at http://www.youtube.com/box

Introducing Box Sync: the first cross-platform sync for the enterprise that scales with your business, provides the security and administrative controls that aren’t found in consumer synchronization services, and is coupled into your employees’ workflow. Learn more at http://www.box.com/sync.

We sat down recently with CEO Aaron Levie and asked him why he thinks you should attend this years’ BoxWorks. Don’t miss speakers like Malcolm Gladwell, Nicholas Carr, Geoffrey Moore and Gavin Newsom, as well as exciting product announcements and a rocking after party!

We’ve added new features to our Box for Android app, including new navigation and folder sorting, a revamped updates feed, new home screen widget, and the ability to switch between multiple accounts. Check it out!

With more features than ever before, the new Box app for iPad comes with enterprise-grade security and an entirely new way present your Box content on the go. Watch your workforce become more productive, secure and mobile than they’ve ever been – the iPad is ready for business.

Box for iPhone lets you work efficiently from the road, accessing content stored on Box, staying up-to-day on feedback and edits from colleagues, and sharing files on-the-go. Learn more at http://www.box.com/mobile

Continuing this logic Apple is the most vulnerable one. It is also true, however, if there is no profit, no investment, innovation and progress. Rather, I see it as the old world order is overturned, and there is a new world order being formed, where there will be no dominant player like Wintel back in time, but there will be big groups of power. Majority of the profit will be harvested by dominant integrated players, like Samsung and Lenovo. The effect of transistor radio has been started to get felt, and there is a need of fundamental business model transformation. This is why MS is changing a lot, in the field of Devices & Services. Gadgets are getting cheaper and cheaper, OEMs do not want and can’t pay license fees, and therefore HW and SW integration is needed in order to offer a better user experience, and Cloud Services is going to be the big battlefield. And here’s the big loser could Apple, and there will be a giant battle between MS, Google and Amazon.

SÁNDOR:

IMHO the great battle will be between Amazon and Alibaba-Tencent-Xiaomi-Baidu etc., the Chinese company or group going out of the fight in Mainland China into a world domination. I will not be surprised if on the Western side Amazon will first acquire ONE MICROSOFT now turned to the right direction (it is worth for everybody to orient him/herself towards Seattle), and then even Google. Facebook and the global financial interests clustering around it will be the third major group, which will enter the battle after the 2016 both with the great Western technologies group and the big technology group/company coming out of the Mainland China as a global force by that time. The great strength of the Facebook-rooted group will be the Facebook currency (not a typo), which will be able to surpass the U.S. dollar as much as any other currency. Now, this will of course come well after 2016. … and I dare advance this projection not as some kind of a SEER, but based on hard-core current facts, trends etc., as well as the result of 3 and a half years of unrelenting work.

GABRIEL:

Amazon buys the MS? This is worth of being the joke of the day. Thanks for the entertainment. I am on a bike tour and just stopped. The guys asked why I started all of a sudden to guffaw. …

[later] I just read over to the end. Even more, they will swallow even Google? Oh wow! And how, pray tell, will they do this? Oops! Giant market cap, but only just marginably profitable. Back last year they were in loss. So how will they scrape together 600 billion dollars? Perhaps the Chinese People’s Army will lend them? Amazon Q3 2012 earnings: $13.18 billion revenue, net loss of $274 million [engadget, Oct 25, 2012]

SÁNDOR:

I did not want to disappoint you. My point was simply to indicate in a gentle way that in the current, quite unpredictable situation even the most unimaginable outcomes are as much possible as yours. Glance at the posts I referred to in the closing part of The question mark over Wintel’s future will hang in the air for two more years post of mine, and I hope you will agree with the above “indication statement” at least. Regarding the current market caps vs. that of Amazon I will draw your attention to certain historical stock prices given below. I will also dare to comment on them as suits my purpose here.

Let’s see first Microsoft vs. Nokia (lássuk először a Microsoft kontra Nokia összehasonlítást): – Nokia had exactly 10 times higher share price ($39.72) at its latest peak (October 2007)than the one on the August 30, 2013 ($3.90)– Microsoft’s latest peak of $36.81 on the same date never recovered ever since despite its continuous good profit and cash accumulation performance– Even the acquisition of Nokia’s Devices & Services business on Sept 3, 2013 did not help much, while Nokia’s share jumpstarted by 60% since then (see the combined small chart on the right by clicking on it for a detailed comparison since the acquisition)

Then go to an Amazon vs. Google comparison (lássuk ezután az Amazon kontra Google összehasonlítást): – Amazon’s share price is growing since November 2008 when it was $42.70 and it came to around $300 for the last two months.– At same time Google’s share price was growing at such a pace in much earlier period, since Nov 17, 2008 ($262.43) to Dec 21, 2009 ($619.98), then after sharp decline during 2010 recovered to a generally below $600 level till July 9, 2012 ($576.52), only after which started an Amazon-like sharp till May 13, 2013 ($909.18), then continuing to be mostly below of that with rise to $889.07 for the week of Sept 9, 2013. See a recent timeframe on the right.

Final observations and conclusions:

Microsoft swallowed the once most promising part of Nokia’s business, the one for which Nokia was famous for. Why the same thing could not happen to Microsoft when its upcoming 2 years of market trials will end in a similar niche market result in the Devices & Services space now to be joined under Stephen Elop’s leadership? That is Amazon acquiring that part of Microsoft the same way Microsoft that part of Nokia. Two years from now Amazon would not want anything else than that business only to join with one of its own (Kindle etc.). Meanwhile the rest of Microsoft will continue as an enterprise vendor with an alternative cloud platform to consumers as well.

If that is a definite scenario (albeit one of many others) why the same thing could not happen to Google’s overall Motorola device and Android software business, thus leaving Google with classic advertising part.

Commenting on recent events in the PC industry at a recent media conference, Acer founder Stan Shih said that the Wintel camp is destined to fail since the two giants have been keeping most of the profits to themselves, which is indirectly pushing many players to Google’s ecosystem.

Since Wintel’s business strategies can no longer create profits for partners, many downstream IT players have turned to other ecosystems to seek profitability, noted Shih, adding that Google’s open platform strategy is not the main attraction prompting IT players to join the Google camp.

Linux is also an open platform, but this has not helped it receive similar attention, Shih noted. For an ecosystem to have a chance of growing and staying strong, it must have leadership adopting strategies that allow all partners to earn profits.

Shih pointed out that Microsoft’s acquisition of Nokia will be the right decision if the cooperation creates value for the companies, shareholders, consumers and partners.

In the past, Taiwan-based enterprises have not placed much focus on the software and service industries, ignoring the importance of strengthening design capabilities and related intangible outputs.

Shih believes Taiwan will need to put more investment into design innovation (arts, software and technologies), in order to change the current status.

As for recent rumors that Acer may be acquired by another player, Shih declined to comment and said that he is in no position to talk about the situation. However, not long ago, when asked the same question, Shih said he is neutral about the idea as long as the plan is fully thought out, is good for both enterprises, and is able to create value and help the company advance further.

People heavily engaged in the Wintel camp with their livelihood became so excited with that post of mine about Bay Trail that started to debate the question “for what the heck Windows on ARM is needed anymore?”

Your question of “for what the heckWindows on ARM is needed anymore?” could be raised only from a software developer point of view. From point of view of hardware, which is the primary view in this regard, such a question is meaningless.

Intel just only catched up with the lag it had in the area of true mobile SoCs, and only in the space of so called application processors. Even more, marketwise it could only start from now to prove its ability to sell the Bay Trail-T SoCs (having finally leading parameters) in hundreds of millions annually. This proof could take as much as 2 years, since only the Windows 8.1 market has been secured for Intel so far, and with that the company would hardly be able to achieve such a high annual volume in only 2 years.

Meantime the ARM leading edge will move further ahead. Intel already has big.LITTLE around its neck with which even smaller vendors, like the 500 people strong Allwinner, could just within half a year leapfrog over Bay Trail-T. Moreover, the leadership implementation of the 64-bit ARM client SoCs, coming to market in 2014, will also rely on big.LITTLE.

Even more essential, however, that during these next 2 years Intel will compete with an incredibly innovative, and from the “go to market” point of view much more efficient, what I will call, OPEN SILICON IP (Intellectual Property) ecosystem, versus its own, now completely closed (even in GPU as well) IP system.

Personally I would regard as an outstanding achievement if during these 2 years Intel would not lag significantly from the leading of of ARM. Such a conclusion is based on the exploration of the OPEN SILICON IP ecosystem exactly one year ago (which was published just upon the completion of a supplementary investigation last December, all in such past tense):The future of the semiconductor IP ecosystem [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Dec 13, 2012].

An Intel engineer, speaking in anonymity, worked on the team that created new multicore system-on-a-chip processors, formerly codenamed “Bay Trail,” for tablets, 2 in 1 devices, all-in-ones, laptops and desktops. The processors are essentially, the “brain” for many of the most popular mobile devices. He describes using tablets running on the new Bay Trail processor as “amazing.” “The fluidity involved with total user experience is great,” he says. “The Bay Trail-based systems also have instant connections. Your data is never stale. And, the battery life improvements are huge.”

Coming back to the title of the post: could be very much so. Look at the first tablet: ASUS Transformer Book T100 [the Official ASUS Facebook page, Sept 11, 2013]

The announcements just keep coming! Introducing the ASUS Transformer Book T100, the 2-in-1 Ultraportable laptop with a 10″ tablet powered by Intel’s latest Bay Trail-T quad-core [Atom] processor. Available in the US starting October 18th from only $349.

“The ASUS Transformer Book T100 is the perfect transformation of the Eee PC with full compatibility, detachable touch screen, immersive entertainment and enough battery for all-day computing,” said ASUS Chairman Jonney Shih. “It is truly a game-changer for our mobile lifestyle.”

Transformer Book T100— high-mobility notebook and tablet combined

ASUS Transformer Book T100 is a 10.1-inch ultraportable with an Intel® Atom™ ‘Bay Trail’ quad-core processor and detachable HD display than can be used as a standalone Windows 8.1 tablet. Featuring a sleek design and durable finish, Transformer Book T100 is not only one of the lightest ultraportables currently available at just 1.07kg, but also one of the lightest 10-inch tablets around, at 550g.

Transformer Book T100 features the new Intel® Atom™ Bay Trail-T Z3740[2M Cache, 1.33 GHz, up to 1.86 GHz] quad-core processor for smooth multi-tasking performance and incredible energy efficiency that can last up to 11 hours on battery power. The lightweight keyboard dock features precision-engineered keys designed for comfortable extended use, a multi-touch touchpad with full Windows 8.1 gesture support and USB 3.0. Just 10.5mm thin, Transformer Book T100 features a brilliant HD 10.1-inch tablet IPS multi-touch display with wide 178-degree viewing angles and razor-sharp images. Transformer Book T100 is also pre-installed with Microsoft Office Home & Student 2013 with full versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote, the perfect productivity solution for both school and work.

From Intel we learned the same day that smaller 8” or even 7” tablets without detachable keyboards will come for as low as $199. There will be certainly higher priced versions as well, with higher resolution than that of the T100’s 1366×768 (which has an IPS screen nevertheless), 11” screen instead of the 10” T100, and most importantly using the higher-end Z3770 SoC with up to 2.4 GHz in burst mode (when thermal and other conditions allow it) instead of T100’s Z3740 SoC with up to 1.8 GHz only. In fact there will be notebook and desktop SoC products as well, code named Bay-Trail-M and Bay-Trail-D, respectively.

This is pretty good as the Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 and NVIDIA Tegra 4 are the current leaders among quad-core ARM SoCs. And a very important point here is that Intel went down very significantly with the recommended customer price of just $37 in volume (1K TRAY) for Z3770. Its “little brother” the Z3740 has even lower $32 price in volume (1K TRAY) while the same clock frequency Clover Trail Z2760 launched a year ago had $41 price (1K TRAY) but significantly less performance as you will see below. And remember that the non-tablet but netbook Atoms, the N470 and N475, launched 2 and a half year ago had even $75 (1K TRAY) price, and were inferior in all regards even to the Z2760. Intel has definitely decided to compete with ARM quadcores not only in performance but in price as well.

UPDATE as of Sept 20, 2013: By the time of publishing my analysis of The manufacturing side of the “Race to the Bottom” Ecosystem [‘USD 99 Allwinner’, Sept 19, 2013] the pricing information for the announced Bay Trail-T SoCs as well as the earlier generation Clover Trail (Z3770, Z3740 and Z2760) disappeared from subsequent ark.intel.com specification pages. I cannot think any other reason than the indicative pricing information became a public blunder for Intel when people were asking questions similar to the two opening ones in my above indicated post:

Intel is planning to release entry-level Bay Trail-based processors for the Android platform in the second quarter of 2014, according to sources from tablet players.

The sources expect the CPUs to be priced between US$15-20, about US$12 lower than the current models.

Although Intel has already offered subsidies for its Bay Trail-T processors including Atom Z3740 and Z3770 at US$32 and US$37 and another 10% off for bulk purchase, they are still less competitive in pricing compared to ARM-based quad-core processors.

With the new entry-level processors, the sources expect Intel to gain an equal footing against players such as Mediatek, Qualcomm and Nvidia.

No wonder as relative to the previous generation Clover Trail Atom Z2760 introduced last September, which had the Imagination PowerVR SGX545 GPU @533 MHz, the Bay Trail Atom Z3770 has the Intel HD Graphics (Gen 7 with 4EU) @313 MHz. Measured at the same 13×7 resolution the improvement is not less than 6.42 times according to benchmarking run by Intel. It is also significantly better than the contemporary (Sept’12) leaders of quad-core ARM SoCs from NVIDIA and Qualcomm, by 4.4 and 3 times, respectively:

It is important here to compare the Bay Trail Z3770 with Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 only because only they are at the same 19×10 resolution while NVIDIA Tegra 4 is at the much higher 25×16 resolution.

This current lag in GPU performance may be overcome in the future as the Bay Trail-T GPU had been announced by much higher clock frequency possibilities, as given on #15 slide of the above presentation:

[4:14] The platform from soups to nuts. What does that mean? First, we start with a fantastic CPU, then we add the gorgeous imaging processing, and we have a stunning graphics coming to this. And around this, of course we will always be connected. We want to have fast, robust, reliable connectivity, cellular connectivity, short range connectivity. We put this on this platform as well, and then we add much more stuff: I/Os, audio, display, and so on and so forth.

Last but not least, we dovetail very sophisticated security into this and a highly specialized, optimized power management. That is the crown jewel of the platform. On this, we put software, a protocol stack, hardened in more than 100 countries and operators around the globe, a very proven stack around all the connectivity connections, and of course a highly optimized software operating system load that runs best on our architecture. And this we call the platform, from A to Z. All these elements are important. They form this platform.

For the user-facing part, the application system, it all starts with a great CPU. A leadership CPU is necessary to do this. And we all know, all cores are not created equal. That compares very much to our brains. So to speak, the analogy is that the core is the brain of that system. And so, our brains are all not equal.

And for our platform, it just starts with an extraordinary brain. The Silvermont core. It’s a flexible, multi-core architecture, has 64 bits, it is leading in performance per watt efficiency. And the good thing is, it spans an ultra-wide dynamic range from very low power to extremely high performancethat we need. And we are supporting with this the broadest range of devices and market segments. And needless to say, it comes with the advanced 22-nanometer tri-gate transistor technology.

And having said this, we have the capabilities, and we know the secret sauce on matchmaking: this stunning architecture and this very advanced process technology manufacturing. That is what I call in that slide here magic. This is our secret sauce. And this is what, exactly what we have done.

And all that leads me to today’s announcement, the introduction of the Bay Trail platform.

Bay Trail is architected for the best mobile computing experience. In more detail, it has leading performance and outstanding battery life. It comes with the next generation of Intel multi-core technology. It provides immersive experiences with Intel HD graphics, and it has ample performance on demand, with the Intel Burst technology 2.0. And of course, it comes with advanced imaging capabilities, and with our next-gen programmable ISP. [8:54]

Dr. Hermann Eul, Vice President & General Manager for Intel’s Mobile and Communications Group: [1:33] “If you look at the Windows tablets I think it is amazing to see what you can do on these lightweight tablets. What you did years back with a heavy weight computer everything now works on those tablets: from office applications, from productivity work to what’s gaming, everything runs on it. They are just compatible PERIOD.” [1:57] – says

“Bay Trail is an amazing platform we’ve developed for tablets,” says Ticky Thakkar, Chief Platform Architect for Intel’s Mobile and Communication’s Group. [2:46] “Well, Bay Trail will give you the same performance as the previous generation of our core at about 5x less power. So that gives you some perspective of how much hard work we did on power.” [3:03] “You’re going to get awesome performance delivered in the thinnest, lightest tablet.” Thakkar led the development of the latest Atom processor, which is based on 22 nanometer, quad-core system-on-a-chip technology. Essentially, the technological achievement has resulted in a chip that outperforms laptops of just a few years ago.

Microsoft’s Tami Reller took the stage at this year’s IDF to talk about Microsoft’s upcoming Windows 8.1 update. The Redmond giant recently released the update to manufacturer and posted it on MSDN for download, which Reller suggested was well received.

Built on its leading 22nm tri-gate technology and the new “Silvermont” microarchitecture, Intel launched three new multicore SoCs, formerly codenamed “Bay Trail,” for tablets, 2 in 1 devices, all-in-ones, laptops and desktops.

The multi-core Intel® Atom™ Z3000 Series, Intel’s most powerful SoC for tablets to-date, delivers an ideal balance of performance, battery life, graphics and features for consumers and businesses, on both Android* and full Windows 8* operating systems.

Leading OEMs will offer a wide range of Bay Trail-powered devices at a variety of prices starting in the fourth quarter of 2013.

INTEL DEVELOPER FORUM, San Francisco, Sept. 11, 2013 –Intel Corporation today launched its latest family of low-power systems-on-a-chip (SoC), codenamed “Bay Trail,” that will fuel a wave of highly powerful and energy efficient tablets, 2 in 1s and other mobile devices to market for consumers and business users in the fourth quarter of this year from leading OEMs including AAVA*, Acer*, ASUS*, Dell*, Lenovo* and Toshiba*.

The “Bay Trail” family of processors is based on Intel’s low-power, high-performance microarchitecture “Silvermont,” announced in May 2013. The Intel® Atom™ Z3000 Processor Series (“Bay Trail-T“) is the company’s first mobile multi-core SoC and its most powerful offering1 to date for tablets and other sleek mobile designs. It delivers a fast and fluid experience and a powerful balance of performance, battery life, graphics and rich features.

The flexibility of the new microarchitecture allows for variants of the SoC to serve multiple market segments, including new Intel® Pentium® and Celeron® processors (“Bay Trail”-M and -D) for entry 2 in 1s, laptops, desktops and all-in-one systems.

The family of “Bay Trail” SoCs provides a wide range of options for Intel’s customers by enabling one hardware configuration that supports both Windows 8* and Android*, ultimately offering people broader choice of form factors at a range of price points that meet the varied needs of consumers and business users.

“What we have delivered with our Bay Trail platform is an incredibly powerful SoC that delivers outstanding performance, long battery life, and a great experience for the way people use these devices today. It’s an incredible leap forward,” said Hermann Eul, corporate vice president and general manager of Intel’s Mobile and Communications Group. “With Bay Trail as the foundation, our OEM partners are bringing a wide variety of designs at a range of prices to delight consumers, business users and IT managers.”

To bring this level of performance to a processor aimed at mobile devices, Intel developed a new platform that solves the contemporary technology challenges people have today, including the ability to multitask, the need for prolonged battery life and enhanced graphics, and the ability to have a more productive, enjoyable mobile experience. Video content and B-roll featuring Intel executives and developers on the making of Bay Trail and supporting images are available at intel.synapticdigital.com.

More Powerful Tablets, 2 in 1s with Intel Atom Z3000 Processor Series

The Intel Atom Z3000Processor series delivers leading performance with all-day battery life. It is Intel’s most capable, best-performing platform to-date for tablets and other sleek mobile devices. It offers a smaller footprint and lower power usage while also enabling double the compute performance and triple the graphics performance compared to the previous-generation Intel Atom processor. The low-power SoC platform enables over 10 hours of active battery life2 and three weeks of standby with an always-connected mobile experience.

The Intel Atom Z3000 Processor series also includes Intel® Burst Technology 2.0 with four cores, four threads and 2MB L2 cache. This performance allows users to multi-task, consume and create content, and enjoy a rich experience across either Android or Windows 8. People will also have a choice of form factors between tablets and 2 in 1s, with thin-and-light devices ranging from 8mm to 1 pound, and screen sizes ranging from 7-11.6 inches.* Tablets based on this latest Intel Atom SoC will be available at prices starting as low as $199.

The Intel Atom Z3000 series also enables business-ready tablets that deliver the experiences and designs people want with the protection for the enterprise that IT requires. With robust security features, including McAfee® DeepSAFE* Technology, AES hardware full disk encryption, Intel® Platform Trust Technology, Intel® Identity Protection Technology and Intel Data Protection Technology, the platform offers a more secure computing environment. It also supports Microsoft Windows 8 Pro Domain Join and Group Policy, and delivers full application and peripheral compatibility.

Intel has been working with top application developers to ensure the best experience is available for Intel® architecture platforms on both Windows and Android. Work with Cyberlink, Skype-HD and Netflix-HD, PhiSix, Arcsoft, Tieto, Gameloft, and many line of business apps are a few examples where Intel has focused on optimizing imaging, graphics, and overall performance that will ultimately improve the experience for consumers. Intel has a long history of optimizations for Windows and Andorid operating systems.

Intel will introduce 64-bit support for tablets in early 2014, delivering even greater value to IT managers. Devices built on this version of the SoC will offer enterprise-class applications and security, and with Intel® Identity Protection Technology (IPT) with PKI, will not require a VPN password when used with systems optimized for IPT and PKI.

Bay Trail Processors to Power Entry 2 in 1s, Notebooks, Desktops and All-in-Ones

The “Bay Trail M” line will be available in four SKUs: Intel Pentium N3510 and Intel Celeron N2910, N2810 and N2805 processors. This series will power a number of innovative2 in 1 devicesin addition tonotebooks enabled with touchcapabilities, bringing them to new audiences at lower price points.

With the microarchitecture flexibility and graphics improvements across all of the “Bay Trail” SKUs, the Pentium N3000 Processor and Celeron N2000 Processor series also boast two times faster performance in productivity applications and up to three times improvement in graphics compared to 2-year-old Intel-based value notebooks3. Designs powered by these processors can be fanless, can measure less than 11 mm thick and weigh just 2.2 lbs. Intel expects the systems to start at $199 for a clamshell device, $250 for a notebook with touch and $349 for a 2 in 1 device.

The “Bay Trail D” line will be available in three SKUs: Intel Pentium J2850, Intel Celeron J1850 and Intel Celeron J1750. These offerings are Intel’s smallest-ever packages for desktop processors, making them ideal for fanless and smaller form factor systems for entry level desktop computing. The processors are also ideal for vertical uses, including intelligent digital displays, with the power savings and up to three times faster performance than similar products from Intel just three years ago3. Full systems based on these SKUs are expected to start at $199.

Intel® Atom™ Z3000 Processor Series (“Bay Trail-T“) … its most powerful offering1 to date for tablets and other sleek mobile designs1 Based on the geometric mean of a variety of power and performance measurements across various benchmarks. Benchmarks included in this geomean are measurements on browsing benchmarks and workloads including SunSpider* and page load tests on Internet Explorer*, FireFox*, & Chrome*; Dhrystone*; EEMBC* workloads including CoreMark*; Android* workloads including CaffineMark*, AnTutu*, Linpack* and Quadrant* as well as measured estimates on SPECint* rate_base2000 & SPECfp* rate_base2000; on Silvermont preproduction systems compared to Atom processor Z2580. Individual results will vary. SPEC* CPU2000* is a retired benchmark. Performance tests, such as SYSmark and MobileMark, are measured using specific computer systems, components, software, operations and functions. Any change to any of those factors may cause the results to vary. You should consult other information and performance tests to assist you in fully evaluating your contemplated purchases, including the performance of that product when combined with other products. For more information go to: www.intel.com/performance

The “Bay Trail M” line … two times faster performance in productivity applications and up to three times improvement in graphics compared to 2-year-old Intel-based value notebooks3

The “Bay Trail D” line … up to three times faster performance than similar products from Intel just three years ago33 Software and workloads used in performance tests may have been optimized for performance only on Intel microprocessors. Performance tests, such as SYSmark and MobileMark, are measured using specific computer systems, components, software, operations and functions. Any change to any of those factors may cause the results to vary. You should consult other information and performance tests to assist you in fully evaluating your contemplated purchases, including the performance of that product when combined with other products. For more information go to www.intel.com/performance

UPDATE as of Sept 20, 2013: By the time of publishing my analysis of The manufacturing side of the “Race to the Bottom” Ecosystem [‘USD 99 Allwinner’, Sept 19, 2013] the pricing information for the announced Bay Trail-T SoCs as well as the earlier generation Clover Trail (Z3770, Z3740 and Z2760) disappeared from subsequent ark.intel.com specification pages. I cannot think any other reason than the indicative pricing information became a public blunder for Intel when people were asking questions similar to the two opening ones in my above indicated post:

Abstract

Intel has launched its latest Intel® Atom™ processor, code named “Bay Trail”. It is the first Intel Atom processor based on 22-nm technology. This article discusses the key features of the platform like extended battery life, Intel® Gen7 graphics architecture, advanced imaging and video, improved performance, security, and more.

Platform Overview

The new processor offers Intel level performance for apps, games, photos, videos, and web browsing in the new thinnest/lightest/coolest form factors. The Intel Atom processor is optimized for tablets and 2 in 1 devices. Tablets based on the new Intel Atom processor support multiple cameras with excellent camera quality and feature integrated image signal processing for both still and video image capture. The table below shows the “Bay Trail” improvements.

Comparison of Clover Trail vs Bay Trail features

Intel Atom processor feature highlights

First-ever 22-nm Intel Atom processor

The new first-ever, 22-nm Intel Atom processor is a quad-core system on chip (SOC) with 4 cores/4 threads. With the CPU, graphics, and memory in one package, this modular design provides the flexibility to package a high-performance processor and graphics solution for multiple form factors.

Enhanced battery life

The new processor offers active battery life of more than 10 hours and standby performance of approximately 30 days3.

Graphics and Media Performance

The latest Intel Atom processor includes a 7th generation Intel® GPU with burst technology to provide a stunning graphics and media experience. The new processor supports high resolution displays up to 2560X1600 @ 60HZ and supports Intel® Wireless (Intel® WiDi) technology through Miracast. Seamless video playback is supported by a high performance and low power hardware acceleration of media encode and decode. The table below compares the two processors’ graphics features.

Security Features

With people carrying their devices with them almost everywhere they go, they are more likely to lose their tablet or laptop. And even if they don’t lose them, devices are susceptible to the growing number of viruses and malware threats. Intel® Identity Protection Technology (Intel® IPT)4can help businesses keep their critical information secure and protect against malware. Intel® IPT helps prevent unauthorized access to personal and business accounts by using hardware-based authentication.

New business-class tablets built with the Intel Atom processor Z3700 Series are specifically designed for the needs of business and the enterprise. Hardware-enhanced Intel® security technologies and support for software from McAfee offer robust security capabilities.

Intel® Wireless Display benefits on Intel Atom processor

Intel® WiDi enables content-protected HD streaming and interactive usages between tablets and TVs. It supports full 1080p video and low latency gaming, and is Miracast compliant Intel® WiDi can be used to link health indicators as well. A few of the capabilities of Miracast-enabled apps are:

– Share & Enjoy: use a big screen HDTV to enjoy and share media with family and friends – Wireless: quickly and securely connect with standard Wi-Fi to a TV without cables– Easy Set-up: simple user interface makes it easy to connect; no additional remote controls – Portable: adapter is small and light, so solution can move with you

Resources for Developers

Below are links to some resources for programming on Windows 8 that can help you take advantage of the new Intel Atom processor features.

1 Claims for Intel® Atom™ Processor Z3770 (up to 2.40GHz, 4T4C Silvermont, 2MB L2 Cache) are based on an internal Intel® Reference design tablet which is not available for purchase: 10” screen with 25×14 resolution, Intel Gen 7 HD Graphics, pre-production graphics driver, 2GB (2x1GB) LPDDR3-1067, 64GB eMMC solid state storage, 38.5 Whr battery. Based on TouchXPRT, WebXPRT and SYSmark* 2012 Lite compared to Intel Atom Processor Z2760. Individual results will vary. Commercial systems may be available after future Windows updates. Consult your system manufacturer for more details. Software and workloads used in performance tests may have been optimized for performance only on Intel microprocessors. You should consult other information and performance tests to assist you in fully evaluating your contemplated purchases, including the performance of that product when combined with other products. For more information go to http://www.intel.com/performance.

2 Claims for Intel® Atom™ Processor Z3770 (up to 2.40GHz, 4T4C Silvermont, 2MB L2 Cache) are based on an internal Intel® Reference design tablet which is not available for purchase: 10” screen with 25×14 resolution, Intel Gen 7 HD Graphics, pre-production graphics driver, 2GB (2x1GB) LPDDR3-1067, 64GB eMMC solid state storage, 38.5 Whr battery. Measured using 3DMark* Ice Storm—a 3D graphics benchmark that measures 3D gaming performance compared to Intel Atom Processor Z2760. Find out more at http://www.futuremark.com. Individual results will vary. Commercial systems may be available after future Windows updates. Consult your system manufacturer for more details. Software and workloads used in performance tests may have been optimized for performance only on Intel microprocessors. You should consult other information and performance tests to assist you in fully evaluating your contemplated purchases, including the performance of that product when combined with other products. For more information go tohttp://www.intel.com/performance.

3 Based on a 30W Hour battery on 19×10 resolution on 10.1” display. Higher resolution will require larger battery. Active use measured as 1080/30 fps local video playback. Battery life may differ based on SKU and SoC performance.

4 No computer system can provide absolute security. Requires an Intel® Identity Protection Technology-enabled system, including an enabled Intel® processor, enabled chipset, firmware, software, and Intel integrated graphics (in some cases) and participating website/service. Intel assumes no liability for lost or stolen data and/or systems or any resulting damages. For more information, visit http://ipt.intel.com/. Consult your system manufacturer and/or software vendor for more information.

2. Measured by TouchXPRT* 2013 overall score and Convert video for sharing sub score. TouchXPRT 2013 is a benchmark for evaluating the capabilities of your Windows* 8 and Windows RT devices. TouchXPRT 2013 runs tests based on five user scenarios (beautify photo album, prepare photos for sharing, convert videos for sharing, export podcast to MP3, and create slideshow from photos) and produces results for each of the five test scenarios plus an overall score. Find out more at http://www.principledtechnologies.com/benchmarkxprt/touchxprt/.

3. Measured by WebXPRT* 2013. WebXPRT 2013 uses scenarios created to mirror the tasks you do every day to compare the performance of almost any Web-enabled device. It contains four HTML5- and JavaScript-based workloads: Photo Effects, Face Detect, Stocks Dashboard, and Offline Notes. Find out more at http://www.principledtechnologies.com/benchmarkxprt/webxprt/. File transfer workload measures time transferring a 423 MB playlist from a PC to a tablet.

4. Measured by SYSmark* 2012 Lite overall score and TabletMark*. SYSmark 2012 Lite is an application-based benchmark that reflects usage patterns of business users in the areas of office productivity, data/financial analysis, system management, and web development. SYSmark 2012 Lite features popular applications from each of their respective fields. Find out more at http://bapco.com/products/sysmark-2012-lite. TabletMark is targeted specifically for touch-enabled devices. With support for Windows* 8 and Windows 8 RT, TabletMark measures performance for two different usage scenarios: Web & Email and Photo & Video sharing. Find out more at http://bapco.com/products/tabletmark.

5. Measured using 3DMark* Ice Storm, a 3-D graphics benchmark that measures 3-D gaming performance. Find out more at http://www.futuremark.com.

6. Display resolution is an OEM feature selection. Consult your system manufacturer for more details.

7. Battery life is measured using a 1080p 10Mbps h.264 Elephants Dream video. Configuration: In the device settings, disable all radios except Wi-Fi. Disable Intel® Display Power Saving Technology (Intel® DPST), set up the system to ~200 nits screen brightness using a full screen white background, and re-enable Intel DPST. Turn OFF the adaptive brightness setting under Power Options in Control Panel. Set “Dim the display” to never on both battery and AC. Set “Put the computer to sleep” to never on both battery and AC. Wait 15 minutes after boot. Launch the default Windows* 8.1 Style UI video player, start the workload video in a loop, and disconnect the AC plug to start the test. Measure the time until battery is exhausted.

9. Software and workloads used in performance tests may have been optimized for performance only on Intel microprocessors. Performance tests, such as SYSmark and MobileMark, are measured using specific computer systems, components, software, operations, and functions. Any change to any of those factors may cause the results to vary. You should consult other information and performance tests to assist you in fully evaluating your contemplated purchases, including the performance of that product when combined with other products. For more information, go to http://www.intel.com/performance.

The announcements just keep coming! Introducing the ASUS Transformer Book T100, the 2-in-1 Ultraportable laptop with a 10″ tablet powered by Intel’s latest Bay Trail-T quad-core processor. Available in the US starting October 18th from only $349.

The machine in my hand, T100, which features the incredible Bay Trail quad-core processor, and incredible 11 hours of battery life. With SD IPS display and stereo audios. And the detachable keyboard back features precisely keyboard and touchpad. It’s perfect for productivity. We are very proud of this machine, and very excited about the Bay Trail quad-core promise. It’s perfect, it’s a perfect two-in-one device in the market.

Intel invited Dell up to the stage in order to show off its new Venue tablet that is powered by Intel’s new Bay Trail architecture. In addition to previewing this new Venue tablet, Dell also informed us that they are creating a new family of tablets that will be known by the Venue name. We should know more about these in early October.

I am really excited to be here at the Bay Trail launch to talk about some of the new platforms that Dell can actually innovate from some of the Bay Trail technologies that Intel is bringing out.

And what I want to show you today is, firstly, one of our new Windows 8 eight-inch tablets we’ll be introducing very soon. This system is part of a new family that we’re introducing that are going to really innovate and drive new capabilities into very small new form factors.

The whole family will offer several key benefits.

Firstly, quality, quality Dell is renowned for, products that last a long time but have great performance on the screen and usability. Secondly, battery life. Anybody worry about range anxiety? Am I going to be able to turn it on and be able to use it? This really fixes that.

Security, making sure you’re connecting to a business, or you’re connecting to your home. That data is secure in transit and on the device.

And lastly, to make sure that there is connectivity, a range of 4G and LTE connectivity, so wherever you happen to be, you’ll be able to connect to the wells.

So great features in the products. But more importantly, we think, is actually being able to have fun and easy to-use products.

So with this introduction, I’m actually pleased to announce here at IDF that we’ll be branding our new family of tablets, Venue, the Dell Venue family. Venue means the place where things happen. And to us, this really is the place that things happen and becomes the center of the universe.

So you can actually carry your entire life with you, connect back, use Dell pocket clouds to be able to access content, be able to use your files and applications wherever you happen to be, really excited about them.

And October 2 in New York City, we’ll be announcing the entire range of products.